Let Me Tell You What Your Teens Are Telling Me

{Let Me Tell You
What Your Teens Are Telling Me}
by Blaine Bartel
Harrison House
Tulsa, Oklahoma
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Used by permission.
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Used by permission.
Scripture references marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New
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Scripture quotations marked MESSAGE are taken from The Message.

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by
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10 09 08 07 06 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Let Me Tell You What Your Teens Are Telling Me

ISBN 1-57794-572-7
Copyright © 2006 by Blaine Bartel
P.O. Box 691923
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74179
Published by Harrison House, Inc.

P.O. Box 35035
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under

International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be
reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express
written consent of the Publisher.
Contents
Preface ..........................................................................v
1 Confessions of a Former Parenting Expert........1
2 “I’m a little brain-damaged,

so get used to it.”........................................19
3 “Quit trying to act perfect because

it’s obvious that you’re not.” ......................35
4 “Lighten up! I’m not Billy Graham

or Mother Teresa!” ......................................51
5 “‘Because I said so,’ isn’t good enough.” ........73
6 “Give me direction because I’ve

never been where I’m going.”....................89
7 “Quit saying no and give me

an alternative.” ..........................................117
8 “Don’t let my friends be the first

to tell me about sex.”................................141
9 “My parents don’t trust me.” ..........................167
10 “Be my friend—but don’t tell anybody.” ......185
Conclusion ................................................................201
>>
The thing that impresses

me most about America
is the way parents
obey their children.
Edward VIII, King of England
Preface >>
A couple of years ago a well-respected traveling

teacher/evangelist who travels all over America asked
me, “Blaine, in all of your experience with young
people, what would you say are the top two problems
with American teenagers?”
The answer came right out before I realized what I

was saying. I said, “Dad and Mom.”
If you are parenting teenagers right now or are a

leader in a youth group, this book will be the wisdom
you need to not only get through it but also to help
you be that godly influence in your kids’ lives. We are
going to look at what the Bible says with regard to
authority, growing up, and developing a teenager’s life
to love and serve God.
Do you know what your teenager is thinking? Do you

understand why they do the things they do and say the
things they say? If you are the parent of a teenager,
and especially if you are a parent of more than one
teenager, you need help!
If you are not a parent of a teenager, you will still

deal with teenagers in your life. They may be your
friends’ kids or your neighbor’s kids or your sisters’
and brothers’ kids. Or maybe you have grandchildren
who are teenagers. And what you are going to find is
v
that in these troubled times, there are a lot of trou-

bled teenagers.
Some of these troubled young people are rebelling

against their parents, and your influence could bring
them around. Some are not being parented by anyone,
and your influence could make the difference in their
lives. And if some are in your own home, you may be
confused and don’t have the
foggiest idea what to do with
them! Whatever your contact
>> with teenagers, I believe this
book will help you.
The important thing As Cathy and I have grown up

to remember is that as parents—and we’ve really
worked at parenting—we have
we are not just found that when our kids are
raising our kids so messing up or doing something
they shouldn’t be doing, it
that they don’t usually comes back to us. In
most cases we will look at each
embarrass us! We
other and say, “You know
are training up the what? We need to correct some
things that we’re doing here,
next generation of make some adjustments
citizens for our ourselves, and then change
some guidelines for the kids.”
nations—and more
significantly for the Through years of studying what
happens in teenagers’ lives and
kingdom of God. having had the chance to
counsel so many, I have found
vi
Preface
that whatever the problem is, it usually goes right back

to Mom and Dad. Of course, there are other factors
that are involved with young people. They can be
greatly influenced by friends and teachers and even
celebrities. But how teenagers live their lives really
comes down to their family and how their parents are
raising them.
If you are parenting a teenager, I know this book will

help you! If you have teenagers in your life, these
biblical principles can also help you to be a good,
godly influence in their lives. The important thing to
remember is that we are not just raising our kids so
that they don’t embarrass us! We are training up the
next generation of citizens for our nations—and more
significantly for the kingdom of God.
Teenagers today are the leaders of tomorrow. And for

our future to be bright, our kids must love God and
have a passion to serve Him with their whole heart,
soul, mind, and strength. For that to happen, we need
God’s wisdom!
vii
3 Things That Won’t
Make Your Teen Happy1
1. Worldly fame.
2. Romantic love.
3. Much money.
{ Blessed is every one who fears the LORD,

Who walks in His ways.
When you eat the labor of your hands,
You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you. }
Psalm 128:1,2
>>
H aving children makes

you no more a parent than
having a piano makes you
a pianist.
Michael Levine
One
Confessions of a Former
Parenting Expert
W hen I started in ministry, I was a

youth pastor. Being around twenty years old, I made a
habit of telling parents of teenagers how to raise their
kids. Because I was a youth pastor and knew so many
young people as well as I did, I thought for sure that
I had it all figured out. But as my own kids started
going through the teenage years, I realized that I
wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. I am no longer the
cocky youth pastor who knew exactly how to do this
and had an instant solution for every problem. I am
now a member of the “Reality Parenting Club.”
Reality Parenting
I learn something new every day about raising

teenagers. I am continuously humbled by the fact that
in order to be successful, we must have guidance from
God and His Word. At the end of the day when our
1
kids are all home and safely asleep in their beds, thank
God! He helped us through another day. And when I
don’t have a clue and can’t seem to make myself clear
to them, I know we can count on the Lord to
strengthen and assist us in this monumental task.
Most important, I cannot read enough of God’s

Word and other books on parenting to keep our
kids and other kids straight (and to keep me sane).
I need wisdom!
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God,

who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and
it will be given to him.
James 1:5
In this process of raising our teenagers, we find out

very quickly that there is no three-step process or
seven-point formula that will answer every question
and solve every problem. The Word of God gives us
principles and guidelines, but we have to be led by the
Holy Spirit in the details. And the details can get pretty
messy and complicated at times! There is no cookie-
cutter recipe for raising a teenager that will insure you
that they will turn out to be a perfect adult. You just
follow God’s Word, pray, believe, and have faith in
God to see you and your kids through it.
Parenting requires a nonstop, deep-in-the-trenches

commitment. This means asking questions—and then
listening carefully and prayerfully to the answers. It
2
Confessions of a Former Parenting Expert
means repeating answers to their questions—often.

And then there’s the probing, investigating, praying,
analyzing, and critiquing. And by the way, all of this
can happen in one hour of one day and several times
during the day!
Cathy and I have discovered that all teenagers are not

created equal. They’re all different. It would be great
if God just made them all the same. There would be
one kind of teenager, and once you figured out one,
you would simply apply every-
thing you knew to all the
others in your life. But God
didn’t do that. One teenager
can be so different from the >>
next, even in the same family.
We have three and they are
completely unique individuals. Reality parenting is
Our oldest is Jeremy. He is

an adventure! Like
thoughtful, deliberate, artistic, anything else in life,
quiet—and determined. Dillon
is our middle son, and he is you can either
creative, musical, outgoing, and determine to trust
what we call “lawyerly.” That
means he likes to argue his God and find the
case from time to time. Brock,
joy in it or rely on
our youngest, is extremely
competitive and can even be yourself and hate
compulsive. He has kept every
one of his toy cars from when
every minute of it.
he was a little boy, they are all
organized carefully on his
3
dresser, and there are hundreds of them! They are

arranged a certain way and they have to stay that way.
Again, there are principles from God’s Word that work

for all of our teenagers, but there are different styles
and methods that you have to find to work these prin-
ciples with each kid. Just when you think you have
something figured out, one of the other kids does
something completely different, and you have to start
all over again in teaching and implementing that prin-
ciple or truth.
Reality parenting is an adventure! Like anything else in

life, you can either determine to trust God and find the
joy in it or rely on yourself and hate every minute of
it. In my experience, trusting God is the only way to
get through it. He understands our kids better than we
do, and He can clue us in on what’s going on with
them and how we should deal with them.
Identify
One of the things God has shown me is that we forget

what it was like when we were teenagers. We forget to
identify with where our kids are in growing up and
what that is like. Along with that, we often don’t listen
to them and ask God to give us wisdom about who
they are and what they’re trying to tell us about them-
selves. Not understanding them—either because we’re
not trying to or just don’t get it—can really frustrate
them. We have to look, listen, and remember how we
felt when we were their age.
4
We forget what it was like to be a teenager. But did

you know that God gave us the ability to identify with
others—even teenagers? He exhorts us in His Word to
understand where they are and what they are going
through. Then we can instruct them and discipline
them with love and compassion instead of getting bent
out of shape every time something goes wrong with
them. We can reach them if we make that effort to
identify with them and really
get into their world. Here is
what the apostle Paul wrote
about this.
>>
There is nothing
Even though I am free of the
demands and expectations of more staggering
everyone, I have voluntarily
become a servant to any and
and attention
all in order to reach a wide getting to a
range of people.
1 Corinthians 9:19 MESSAGE teenager than an
adult who “gets
I used The Message translation them,” who knows
so that you could really catch their language and
the spirit of what the apostle
Paul was saying to the church understands what
at Corinth. This was a church
they are thinking,
that was like modern-day Los
Angeles. Being a port city, feeling, and
Corinth was a mosaic of differ-
ent people groups, and world-
experiencing.
wide commerce abounded
5
there. There were all kinds of cultures and religions in

the city. Paul was trying to help the believers relate to
each other in a biblical manner and also to find a way
to effectively convey the gospel to the diverse people
groups in their city. He went on to describe these
people and how he dealt with them.
…religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists,

loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoral-
ized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I
kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their
world and tried to experience things from their
point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of
servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet
into a God-saved life. I did all of this because of the
Message. I didn’t want to just talk about it; I wanted
to be in on it!
1 Corinthians 9:20-23 MESSAGE
Paul tells the Corinthians that he will serve people in

any way to bring them the truth of the gospel. He
exhorts them not only to preach and teach, but to
preach and teach with some understanding of the
people they are ministering to. We are to step into
their shoes. Look at life through their eyes. Discern
their needs and concerns. Identify with them—then
preach and teach the gospel in a way they can under-
stand it and receive it.
This is a great principle for dealing with teenagers! We

must understand where they are coming from so we
6
can be effective in giving them instruction, disciplining

them, and influencing them to obey God’s Word and
follow His Spirit. There is nothing more staggering and
attention getting to a teenager than an adult who “gets
them,” who knows their language and understands
what they are thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
Run To Win
As a green, wet-behind-the-ears youth pastor, I had no

idea how much perseverance it took to raise a
teenager. In this same passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul
expresses his passion to reach the lost no matter what
it cost him personally. I have discovered that you have
to have that same passion to parent a teenager!
You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the

athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win.
All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold
medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one
that’s gold eternally.
I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for
the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No
sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top
condition. I’m not going to get caught napping,
telling everyone else all about it and then missing
out myself.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 MESSAGE
7
>>
One of the main things I have

learned through the years is
that young people have a
culture all their own. They are
like a tribe within America. They
have their own tribal music.
They have their own tribal
language. They have their tribal
huts—their bedrooms! They
have tribal meeting places,
which can be everything from a
convenience store parking lot
to a church youth center. And
like our Native American tribes,
they have clans within their
tribe, especially in school.
8
Read this passage again in the context of reaching your

kids. Paul says, “Man, we got to go for it. We can’t just
be in the race of parenting. We can’t make a half-
hearted attempt to parent just to get through the years
until we get our kids out the door.” Paul said that we
need to run to win. Then he told us how to win.
Keep Yourself in Shape
To win, we have to be like an athlete training for the

Olympics. We have to work hard, train hard, and stay
fit ourselves. We have to keep our own lives right with
God because how we live our lives before our kids
will have more impact on them than anything we say
to them. We can’t really expect them to love God, read
and study His Word, pray, and live by the Spirit if we
are out living for ourselves and doing what is right in
our own eyes. We must model the Christian life for
them—and that includes admitting we are wrong
when we mess up, repenting to God, setting things
right, and continuing to move forward in Him. Being
a good Christian example does not mean you do
everything perfectly; it just means doing the best you
can in following Jesus Christ in all honesty.
Get God’s Strategy
To win, we also have to strategize. Just like an athlete

will figure out how to win each race, we have to be
prayerful, thoughtful, and deliberate when we deal
with our teenagers. Athletes don’t just show up and
9
run. They consider who they are running against, the

challenges of the course they are running that day, and
even what the crowd will be like as they run. They take
the time to carefully and prayerfully consider all the
facts and information they are given and then choose
the best strategy possible in order to win.
As Christians, we have the advantage of knowing God,

and He knows everything. He knows our kids better
than we do, and sometimes only the Holy Spirit can
tell us what’s going on with them. He knows the chal-
lenges and attacks that will come against them. And
even if we don’t heed His warnings and are hit by the
enemy, we can go to Him and get His plan to over-
come and defeat the enemy. Once we have God’s
Word and the Holy Spirit’s revelation of what we are
dealing with and how to deal with it—which is His
strategy—then we know we can win.
Does this sound like a lot of work to you? Sometimes

it is, but your kids are worth it! Paul was saying that
reaching people with the gospel doesn’t come natu-
rally and without preparation, and neither does parent-
ing. It won’t come to you on the fly. You must pray
and seek God’s wisdom and leading with regard to
your kids. You must study and learn from others, and
you must persevere. Believe me, your kids will notice
when you don’t give up on them. It means everything
to them that no matter what they do you are still there,
giving them all you’ve got. They may not thank you for
it now, but one day they will!
10
A Tribe of Their Own
One of the main things I have learned through the

years is that young people have a culture all their own.
They are like a tribe within America. They have their
own tribal music. They have their own tribal language.
They have their tribal huts—their bedrooms! They
have tribal meeting places, which can be everything
from a convenience store parking lot to a church youth
center. And like our Native American tribes, they have
clans within their tribe, especially in school. They have
the nerd clan, the jock clan, the intellectual clan, the
preppy clan, the gang clan, the druggie clan, the
gothic clan, and—thank God—many schools now
have the Jesus clan.
To figure out how to get into their world and reach

them, to keep them firmly rooted and grounded in
God, we need to understand the culture of their tribe
and what clan or clans they gravitate toward. As a
parent of teenagers, I find this concept very comfort-
ing. My kids are part of a foreign tribe, and I need to
approach them in the same way I would approach a
tribe in Africa or New Guinea!
It means a lot to kids when someone tries to see some-

thing from their point of view, but the same is true for
adults. You know how much it means to you when
your boss takes a moment to come in and talk to you
about your job. He asks you, “What’s going on? Is
there a way that I can help you to do your job better
or make it easier for you?” It’s great when somebody
takes time to consider what’s going on in your world.
11
Wives love it when their husbands sit down and take

the time to ask, “Honey, what’s going on in your life
right now? How can I help you? What’s going on at
home with the kids?” or, “What’s going on at your
office?” Everyone appreciates it when somebody tries
to jump into their world, see life from their point of
view, and try to help them and encourage them.
The same thing is true for teenagers. Parents who take

time to understand and listen to their kids will have far
better results in keeping them on their mission for
Christ as they grow up. Taking time may mean talking
to your kids when you pick them up from school
instead of listening to a CD, the radio, or talking on
your cell phone. It may mean getting up a little earlier
to make certain you have breakfast together. And then
there may be times when you plan special vacations or
getaways just so you can spend time together.
This kind of attention is what your kids really want. If

you don’t give them this kind of attention—if you
don’t make the effort to enter and understand their
world and then include them in yours from time to
time—then you will find them getting your attention in
negative and destructive ways. This is why it is so
important for you to stay in touch with your teenagers
and keep up-to-date on what’s going on in their lives.
Again, they may call you a pest and even tell you
you’re intruding on their privacy, but one day they will
thank you for caring enough to ask questions.
You have to get a grip on the reality of parenting

teenagers. It’s not easy! But if you pay the price with
12
your time and effort early in their lives, you won’t be

like so many parents who pay a terrible price at the
end of their child’s teenage years. Kids who are
allowed to run free without any guidance and instruc-
tion will cost their parents much more time, money,
and heartache in the end than would have been
required from the beginning. Run the race of parent-
ing in order to win. And realize that they are growing
up in a time and place, in circumstances and with
people, which you never experienced when you were
growing up.
If you treat your teenagers with respect and show

compassion and understanding for the challenges they
are facing, they are far more likely to let you into their
life and influence them. So I am going to help you out
by telling you the things that they are telling me. If you
know what is going on in their heads and hearts, you
stand a better chance of not only living through the
experience of raising teenagers, but also helping them
fulfill the plan of God for their lives with joy.
13
3 Things That Will Make
Your Teen Brilliant1
Just because your teenager has a brain doesn’t mean

they are using it all that much. If they learn to be a life-
long learner they will go far in life. Here are three
qualities that will make them a great learner.
1. Teach them to ask questions. Science

is simply the art of asking lots of
questions and searching for the
answer. What questions are they
asking? Encourage them to ask lots of
questions when they are around
people who know more than they do.
2. Help them develop a teachable spirit.

Someone once said, “It’s what you
learn after you know it all that
counts.” Help them make a habit of
never going to sleep without having
learned something new that day.
3. Challenge them to have passion. One
time a student of philosophy asked his
teacher how he could become a man
of great wisdom. The teacher said,
“Follow me and I will show you.” The
teacher waded into the ocean and the
student followed him. The wise
teacher then held his young pupil
under water until the student began to
kick and fight his way to the surface.
The student, gasping for air, asked,
“What did you do that for?” The wise
teacher replied, “When you want
wisdom as much as you wanted air,
you will find it.”
>>
C hildren today are

tyrants. They contradict their
parents, gobble their food,
and tyrannize their teachers.
Socrates (470-399 B.C.)
Two
ÒIÕm a little
brain-damaged,
so get used to it.Ó
A young person at Oneighty a number

of months ago was walking around with this black t-
shirt on. It had great big words on the back that said,
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in
large groups!” That’s so true! You get two or more
teenagers together and you never know what’s going
to happen or what they are going to do.
Actually, teenagers don’t usually say that they’re

brain damaged. What they say is, “I’m a teenager.
What do you expect? Of course I do this kind of
stuff!” or “I wasn’t thinking! I don’t know why I did
that.” And if you look back at your teenage years,
you will probably find times when you thought the
same thing. Just think about some of the crazy things
that you did when you were a young person. You
know you did crazy stuff! You did things that you
19
would never do today. Why? Because back then you

were brain-damaged as well.
I almost hate to share this, but it illustrates what I’m

talking about. When I was a teenager my buddy and I
were on a school bus coming home from school. We
were at the back of the bus, looking out the window,
and saw another school bus with a bunch of our
friends on it traveling behind
us. At that moment our brains
told us that the best thing to do
would be to pull down our
pants and moon them.
>> We were caught, of course, and

suspended from school for
three days. My parents went
God knows that
even further and grounded me.
young people I remember telling my Mom
and Dad, “I don’t know why I
are prone to did that. I just did it, you
foolishness and know?” To this day, I don’t
know why I did this!
fads, and the Bible
If you’re not sure that teenagers
says that the cure
do stupid things, I have proof.
for this is tough- I have pictures of brain-
damaged teenagers doing
minded discipline. many crazy things. One is of a
kid who is roller-blading on his
father’s greenhouse. Another
shows a teenager skateboard-
ing off the top of a building.
20
“I’m a little brain-damaged, so get used to it.”
One shows a teenager going street canoeing, and

another is performing a balcony free-fall. They just
don’t think!
God Knows
In case you are thinking that what I’m saying is unscrip-

tural, let me give you some verses to meditate on.
The glory of young men is their strength, and the

beauty of old men is their gray head [suggesting
wisdom and experience].
Proverbs 20:29 AMP
This is saying that when you get older you get smarter.
You have acquired some wisdom. You have gained
some experience. You have learned why you should
do things or why you shouldn’t do things. When you
are young you have a lot of energy, but unfortunately
you don’t always have the wisdom and understanding
to go with it.
Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but

the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.
Proverbs 22:15
God knows that young people are prone to foolish-

ness and fads, and the Bible says that the cure for this
21
is tough-minded discipline. God tells us in this verse in

Proverbs just what the problem is with young people.
They’re going to be prone to foolish acts, crazy think-
ing, and fads of their culture. They are going to say
and do things that are completely irrational and illogi-
cal simply because their peers are doing it or it seemed
right to them at the time.
Praise God, He also tells us the answer to this

problem. There is a medicine to cure this disease! He
lets us know that we can bring teenagers to sanity
and build godly character in them if we discipline
them. He promises that when they experience some
form of pain or discomfort because of their foolish
words or actions, and we take them to the Word of
God and show them that what they said or did
opposed God’s will for their lives, it will drive fool-
ishness out of their lives.
Just how does this work? When your teenager does

something stupid, you discipline them so that they
remember that doing that stupid thing did not give
them the pleasure they thought they’d get. In fact, it
brought displeasure. In my case, my parents grounded
me for a pretty good period of time. Instead of contin-
uing to have fun with my friends, I stayed home and
was deprived of fun.
To further make your point, when your kids do some-

thing good, you reward them. Take them on a fun
weekend trip with a couple of their friends or give
them something they’ve been believing God for. After
a while of suffering pain or displeasure when they
22
mess up and getting rewarded

when they stay on track with
God, they will want to do the >>
right thing and think before
they say or do something.
Teenagers do
This is the point of disciplining stupid things, and
a teenager—to train them to
think and pray and consider parents need to
God’s Word before they speak understand that.
or act. (To be honest, we need
a lot more adults in the church If they do, when
who do this!)
something crazy
I can tell you from personal happens, they
experience that there is nothing
like disciplining your teenager, won’t completely
who has been rebellious or just lose it and go
plain stupid, and seeing the
eyes of their understanding ballistic every time.
enlightened! When they fully They will just learn
recognize how they have been
thinking, speaking, and acting to deal with it.
contrary to God’s Word and
experience the consequences
of their actions, their lives are changed. It may take a
time or two, but eventually they will see the light.
Science Knows
Science always discovers what God has already told us

in His Word, and teenagers are no exception. I came
23
across an article on the Internet titled “Why Teenagers

are Weird.” In the story they document some studies
that were done on the adolescent brain. I won’t go
into all the research on this, but it helps us understand
what our kids are thinking and why they do the things
they do.
There are two major development spurts when the

young brain develops and grows. The first is in the
womb. They say that much of the brain’s develop-
ment occurs before birth. When the baby is in the
womb the brain grows like crazy. By the time the
child is six years old, 90-95 percent of the brain’s
development has taken place. Then it is relatively
dormant for years.
The last 5 percent of the development of the brain

happens during adolescence. This is when the next
major growth spurt happens. So your teenager is in a
tremendous stage of brain development, which
explains a lot of their hair-brained thinking and activ-
ity. While their brain is growing and the world is
expanding, they are trying to figure out how to deal
with it.
Here is a quote from the article.
By age six, a child’s brain has already achieved 95

percent of its adult structure. Research—much of it
based on brain scans of infants—shows that
neutron connections form at a dizzying speed
during the period from birth to three. Brand new
24
research has uncovered a second period of rapid

brain development stretching from preadolescence
through to the early twenties. The brain is under-
going more change now than in any other time,
accept just after birth.
Linda Spear, Professor of Psychology
Binghamton University, New York
New connections throughout the adolescent brain

are being made during the teenage years. This
includes the gray matter where we do our rational
thinking. Therefore, rationality is being further devel-
oped in youth.
The brain is feverishly reshaping itself—pruning

neutral connections at the rate of thirty thousand
per second, producing a leaner, meaner brain. The
biggest changes are occurring in the brain’s
prefrontal cortex, located right behind the fore-
head, which governs executive thinking or ability
to use logic, make sound decisions, size up poten-
tial risks…
Knowing that this decision-making area is still
under construction explains plenty about teenagers.
Researchers have found that, even in those who
generally show good judgment, the quality of deci-
sion making fizzles in moments of high arousal
emotion—whether happiness, anger, or jealousy—
particularly when teens are with their peers. It over-
rides logic. Even the smart ones momentarily
become dumb.
25
This phenomenon may help to explain why one

teen starts smoking even though he or she knows it
will hurt their track time. Or another shoplifts a
pack of gum while they have $5 in their pocket.
Linda Spear, Professor of Psychology
Binghamton University, New York1
What this boils down to is that science has again discov-

ered what God knew from the beginning and wrote in
His Word, that young people are prone to foolishness.
Now You Know,

So What Are You Going to Do About It?
Teenagers do stupid things, and parents need to

understand that. If they do, when something crazy
happens, they won’t completely lose it and go ballistic
every time. They will just learn to deal with it. If they
don’t understand and accept this fact, then they will
probably throw a wild fit every time their kids say or
do something crazy. They won’t deal with it, and their
teenagers will never learn to think before they act or
seek the wisdom of God in all they say and do. Parents
must deal with their kids’ “brain-damaged” behavior as
they are growing up. There is nothing worse than an
adult who still acts brain-damaged!
Let me warn you. It’s going to take time after time after
time of explaining and disciplining. They rarely catch
on the first time. You’re going to have to work contin-
ually at putting godly wisdom and knowledge—the
26
>>
Remember that the brain damage is

temporary! It is not going to last
forever. This is your hope and one
of the greatest things that you can
hold on to. There’s a day coming
when they are going to figure it out.
They’re going to be all right. So all
you have to do is keep walking in
God’s wisdom, praying, disciplining,
instructing, and believing His Word
until they pass through this season
of insanity.
27
right stuff—into their heads. They need lots of help

connecting the dots and figuring out how things work.
Following are some things that you can do to help

make the process a little easier.
Stop the Shock
What does that mean? Quit having emotional outbursts

of shock and dismay every time they say or do some-
thing you never could have anticipated. Don’t act so
surprised that your teenagers do stupid, crazy things.
Learn to deal confidently and calmly with stupidity. Just
say, “Hey, I understand. But we’re going to make sure
this doesn’t happen again. Let’s sit down and work this
through. We’ll figure this out together. I’ll help you to
see how you can avoid making this decision again.”
Thrills and Chills
Most teenagers crave excitement. They want to do

things that are exciting and adventurous. You can see
to it that they have extracurricular activities in school
that challenge them and cause them to stay focused
but also give them a rush of excitement. If you don’t
step in and monitor your kids’ activities, they will
probably find things to do that will harm themselves.
Many teenagers want to be at risk. They want to try

new things. They want to get out there and experi-
ment with their world. This is the youth pastor’s
28
main job, right? To find ways of providing that outlet

for our young people while teaching them about
God. But parents also have to help them find safe
risks, opportunities to have a good time without
killing themselves.
All kinds of sports fall under this category, even things

like skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, or tram-
polining. Maybe they find adventure in Boy Scouts or
going to camp in the summers. Just find things that
they can do and like to do that provide a thrill and a
chill but will not put them in harm’s way too much.
Watch the Time
Did you know that 40 percent of a teenager’s time is

discretionary? In other words, they figure out what to
do with it. During nearly half of their day, they decide
what they’re going to do. If you give a young person
that much time to figure out what they’re going to do,
they will usually find their way into trouble!
We’ve got to get involved and bring specific activities

into that free time. I’m not saying that they can never
have some time to rest, relax, read, watch television,
or play computer games. But we’ve got to keep them
busy. We’ve got to find things for them to get involved
with, extracurricular activities or hobbies that they
enjoy. We’ve also got to involve them in household
chores and maintenance. They need to understand
that being a part of a family means doing their part,
29
and it also builds their self-esteem to be trusted with

certain responsibilities.
Studies show that kids who are involved in supervised

activities from one to four hours a week are 49 percent
less likely to use drugs and 37 percent less likely to
become a teen parent. So it is important for parents to
monitor a teenager’s time and make sure they are busy
doing the right things.
Your Greatest Hope
Remember that the brain damage is temporary! It is not

going to last forever. This is your hope and one of the
greatest things that you can hold on to. There’s a day
coming when they are going to figure it out. They’re
going to be all right. So all you have to do is keep
walking in God’s wisdom, praying, disciplining,
instructing, and believing His Word until they pass
through this season of insanity.
You can pass along this hope to your teenagers too.

Every now and then, it’s a good idea to let them know
that there will come a day when they won’t feel and
act quite so crazy as they are feeling and acting now.
You will be there to help them keep it together, and
eventually they are going to come through it. After
that, they will still mess up from time to time—as all
human beings do—but they won’t be quite so hair-
brained as they are now!
30
4 Things Your Teen Should Look for
in a Mentor2
A mentor is critical in the life of every successful

person. Joshua had Moses. Elisha had Elijah. The disci-
ples had Jesus. Oftentimes, mentors won’t seek you
out—we have to find them. Here are 4 clues in helping
your teenager find the right one for them.
1. A good track record. Look for

someone who has a good history of
success in the thing they want to do.
2. Mutual benefit. Every great relation-

ship will be good for both people. It
is never one-sided. What can they do
to help this potential mentor, bringing
benefit to them?
3. Unforced relationship. Allow the

mentoring relationship to develop
naturally. Don’t try to force someone
into this. Just find a way to be around
this person by serving, helping, and
contributing any way they can.
4. Ask the right questions at the right
time. Don’t overwhelm this person to
the point they want to avoid you. Be
sensitive to the right opportunities to
learn. Most of the time, they’ll learn
more by observing them.
>>
C hildren are natural

mimics who act like their parents
despite every effort to teach
them good manners.
Anonymous
Three
ÒQuit trying to act perfect
because itÕs obvious
that youÕre not.Ó
I find a lot of young people believe that

their parents are hypocrites—not because they make
mistakes, but because they try to cover them up or
they deny they made a mistake in the first place. Life
is about learning from our mistakes and the mistakes
of others, and if we go through life faking it, never
acknowledging our faults and failures or doing
anything about them, so will our kids.
One of the things our kids need to see is that we know

how to make adjustments as parents; that when we
miss it, we own it, repent of it, make things right, and
keep going. By repent, I don’t mean to just say, “Oh
my, I’m sorry. I guess I made a mistake.” What I mean
is that we say, “That was wrong, and I’m changing my
thinking and my behavior.” When our kids see us
change our way of thinking and behavior so that we
35
line up with God’s Word, they will have no argument

with us when we discipline them to do the same.
Your kids watch how you deal with your problems

and sins. It’s good for them to see you persevere to
change a bad habit or battle to overcome a fault in
your life. If you live that way, they won’t have a
problem with your making a mistake from time to
time, especially when it comes to making decisions
with regard to them. They simply want to see you
have real humility. They want to see you admit you
were wrong and make it right. They can respect you
for that, and it gives them a
model they can follow.
When kids see you deal right-

eously with your sins and
faults, they have hope that if
>> they mess up in the future, it’s
not the end of the world. God
still loves them and forgives
The two greatest them. You still love them and
words I believe you forgive them. And they can
admit it, repent, and go on
can share with your without feeling ashamed and
d e s t royed. More o v e r, when
teenager are:
they have this godly model to
forgive me. follow, they will not be easily
tempted to become rebellious
and contentious every time
you or they mess up. Instead,
they will know what to do to
make things right again.
36
“Quit trying to act perfect because it’s obvious that you’re not.”
Think back on your life. Who were the people that you
really looked up to and respected? Maybe they were
your parents or a friend of your parents, an employer,
a Sunday school teacher or pastor, a sports coach, a
music instructor, a schoolteacher, or even a television
character. This person always seemed to make the right
decisions and everyone around them was so happy all
the time. But what happened when that person made
a mistake? Didn’t that make you feel better?
When you saw that the person you admired and

respected wasn’t perfect and actually made a bad deci-
sion now and then, didn’t it give you hope? After all,
if that person messed up and admitted it, got some
things straight, and then went on with their life, then
you could do the same thing. You thought to yourself,
I guess even the best people make mistakes. We all
have to deal with not being perfect. So I can do the
same.Messing up is not the end of the world, and I’m
going to be okay if I just stick with God.
Forgive Me
Humility is what our kids need to see, and the two

greatest words I believe you can share with your
teenager are: forgive me. If you’ve never said those
words to your teenager, they probably need to hear
them. No parent is perfect, and you have probably
failed them or let them down a time or two.
I’ll never forget the day Cathy and the kids and I
were on our way to church in our first brand-new
37
van. It was beautiful and I was so proud of it. So I

made the decision that all good fathers make when
you get a new vehicle. There would be no food and
drink in it. Of course, we had always eaten and
drank in our previous vehicles, but this was differ-
ent. This was our new van, which required a new
rule because I was determined to keep our new van
spotlessly clean. For the rest of eternity it would look
just like it did when it came out of the showroom at
the dealership.
On the first Sunday after getting our new van, we were

rushing around, running late, and hadn’t had time to
drink our coffee. Cathy asked me if she could please
bring her coffee into the nice, new van. Being a great,
understanding husband, I said yes. But I told her, “Do
not spill the coffee.”
We got in the van and—being late—I quickly put it in

reverse. I wasn’t used to a new car in which the trans-
mission actually worked, where it didn’t take a second
or two to slowly creep into gear. Thus, the moment I
hit reverse, the van immediately jerked back. Of
course, Cathy’s coffee went flying all over the van. It
was on the carpet, on the seats, and everywhere!
What was my response? I lost it! I mean, I was mad!

After all, I had just told her not to spill her coffee. She
knew what I had requested and did it anyway! This
wasn’t my fault! She should have been more careful.
So all the way to church I was puffing and wheezing
and snorting, making it obvious that I was very
displeased and upset.
38
When we got to church I got

out of the van and slammed
the door. Then I marched to
the church building, seething >>
inside. When we reached the
doors, I was confronted with
those wonderful Church on If your kids hear
the Move greeters. They were
just as friendly as could be. you say, “Forgive
“Hey, Pastor Blaine! How are me”—especially if
you doing?”
the person you
Without hesitation, I smiled my
wronged was
church smile and said, “Fine!
Thank you. Praise God! Amen.” them—they will be
I was still angry with Cathy,
and our kids were dragging more likely to not
along behind us. They all had a be stubborn and
front row seat to watch Dad be
a jerk until they escaped into unrepentant when
their classes. you confront them
My heart was still hard as a rock with their own sins
when Cathy and I entered the
and mistakes.
adult service. Praise and
worship music began, and I
automatically got right into it. I
was singing, “Hallelujah!” But it
was all sticking in my throat. It was hard to praise God
out of a pure heart when I was so ticked at Cathy, and
now she was ticked at me. By the time I raised my
hands just a little bit, she turned to me with a look that
said, “You hypocrite.”
39
Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I grabbed her hand

and asked her to forgive me. I knew better than to
come to worship God before making it right with
someone I had offended. Jesus’ words were ringing in
my ears.
Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and

there remember that your brother has something
against you, leave your gift there before the altar,
and go your way. First be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5:23,24
After church, we got our boys, got in the van, and I was
tempted to get mad again because I saw the coffee
stains. But I didn’t! Instead, I said, “Boys, I need you to
forgive me. I shouldn’t have treated your mom that
way, and I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.”
That day I taught them Matthew 5:23-24 without even

quoting it, and they also learned a valuable lesson
from Proverbs 24:16: the righteous man may fall seven
times, but he gets right back up again. I was a living
example to them of sinning, repenting, making it right
with the ones you’ve offended, and going on with
your life. And all of that happens when you utter those
two powerful words, “Forgive me.” This wasn’t the first
time I asked for their forgivness, and it certainly
wouldn’t be the last!
40
I gave my kids hope by asking them to forgive me.

They could see that no matter how many times they
trip, they can still get up, make it right, and keep
going. They learned that those who really love God
still miss it, but they also admit it and do what Jesus
would do to get things straight: ask for forgiveness.
When they do that, they don’t stay down long.
Soon, they’re up on their feet, happy, and moving
forward again.
If your kids hear you say, “Forgive me”—especially if

the person you wronged was them—they will be more
likely to not be stubborn and unrepentant when you
confront them with their own sins and mistakes. If
they see humility and truth operating in your life, you
will find humility and truth operating in their lives.
Be a Role Model
Josh McDowell recently reported that 41 percent of

churchgoing kids today say that they have no role model
to respect. Another 20 percent say that they might have
a role model, but they’re not sure. These percentages are
higher than any other generation in the history of our
nation—and that is frightening.1 That means our kids are
left without believers to look up to, Christians who
exemplify what is good and decent and wise.
Teenagers are not looking for someone who says and

does all the right things. They are looking for someone
who puts their money where their mouth is, who actu-
ally practices what they preach. In fact, they would
41
rather see it than hear about it. For a parent (or adult
friend) to be a role model for a teenager, it takes
courage. You have to be transparent and brutally
honest with yourself and with them. Here are what I
call the four B’s of brave parents who really try to be
a good, godly role model for their kids.
Be Understanding
When kids do bonehead stuff and you’re ready to

throttle them, that’s when you need to be cool and
understanding. After you deal with what they did, tell
them some of the silly things you did and the mistakes
you made—and the price you paid for your stupidity.
Explain how you felt and what you thought and how
you learned some of the lessons the hard way.
It’s even better if you can share these stories with them
before they are in situations where they are tempted to
do the same stupid thing you did. Tell them how you
messed up, and also tell them the terrible conse-
quences of your actions. Then tell them that you have
high hopes for them, that they will be smarter than
you were and learn from your mistakes. You will pray
that they will remember the crazy thing their father or
mother did, and when they face the same situation,
they won’t make that mistake themselves.
Kids love it when you are real with them. When you
sit down and tell them about some of the traumas and
problems you went through when you were their age,
they can relate to you. It means a lot to kids when you
42
say, “You know what? I understand what you’re going

through. Let me tell you what it was like when I was
your age.”
Be Approachable
It takes real courage and self-restraint to stay in control

when your kids say or do something that’s out of line.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be strong, that you can
never get angry or upset, or that you shouldn’t enforce
the rules. But you must stay open and available. Your
teenagers should feel like they
can talk to you and share things
with you without fear that you
will reject them or retaliate in a
harmful way. They need to >>
know that no matter what
they’ve done or what kind of
mess they are in—and no matter
With God’s help,
how upset you get—you will you can go
help them work through it and
still love them. That’s being an from being an
approachable parent. unapproachable
If you’ve already lost it too parent to an
many times, and your kids are
approachable
afraid to talk to you, you can
still regain their trust. First, you parent. It’s
need to acknowledge your past
over-reactions and ask them to never too late.
forgive you. Second, you need
to ask them to pray for you
43
because you are determined to change, but it is hard.

Then, the next time they make a mistake or mouth-off
or break the rules, you do what’s right. Control your
anger, confront them, discipline them, and pray with
them. And if you haven’t been letting them know
about similar stuff you did as a kid, now’s the time.
With God’s help, you can go from being an unap-
proachable parent to an approachable parent. It’s
never too late.
Be Honest
Honesty is always the best policy with kids. When

you blow it, tell them you blew it. When you don’t
have a clue, tell them when you’re not sure about
something and have to ask God and other people to
help you figure it out. If they ask you a question and
you don’t know the answer, just say, “You know
what? I don’t know. Let me pray about that. Let me do
some research.” If you act like you always know the
answer to everything, then when they don’t know
something, they won’t know how to handle it. But if
you openly admit you don’t know something and
then involve them in discovering the answer or the
truth of the matter, especially when you’re dealing
with God’s Word, it shows them that ignorance can be
fixed and is nothing to be ashamed of. Being stupid is
acting like you know something when you don’t!
You also need to tell your kids that asking questions

does not mean you’re stupid. You need to explain the
difference between being stupid and being ignorant.
44
The Bible says that we perish for a lack of knowledge,

and that means believers should be gaining knowl-
edge all the time. You can’t gain knowledge without
asking questions. You can’t learn anything without
admitting you don’t know something first.
Humility in learning is a great character trait, and our

kids need to see that at home; because in school, at
work, and out in the world, people can laugh at them
when they ask questions. When they don’t know
something other people think they ought to know,
many of those people will make fun of them or tease
them for their ignorance. There are even those who
are so insecure that they make themselves feel better
by embarrassing others because they ask questions or
don’t know something. Teach your kids early on that
that is being stupid!
Our kids need to understand that being honest when

we don’t know something is smart. It is the way we go
from being ignorant to being knowledgeable. If they
see you do this at home, and they understand how the
world operates, they won’t have a problem asking
questions and learning wherever they are. They won’t
let the devil cheat them out of what God has for them
because they’re too afraid to admit they don’t know
something and are afraid to ask someone about it.
Be a Godly Example
Show your teenagers how to repent, how to recover,

how to move forward, and how to live a life that is
45
surrendered to Christ. Let them know what is going on

in your life. Don’t just ask them about theirs and never
offer anything in return. They will be much more
willing to confide in you if you confide in them from
time to time. If you’re having trouble getting along
with someone at work, it’s making you feel insecure,
and as a result you are taking it out on your spouse
and your kids, ask them to forgive you and then let
them into your life. Tell them what’s bugging you and
ask them to pray for you.
Acting like you’re perfect is not fooling anyone, espe-

cially your kids! Be understanding, be approachable,
be honest, and be a godly example in your own life.
Then your kids will be a lot more willing to let you
into their lives and respect your authority over them.
46
6 Things Your Teens Must Believe
About Themselves2
1. I have been given power over the

devil. (1 John 4:4.)
2. I have been given power over every

circumstance in my life. (Mark 11:23.)
3. I have a strong body that has been

healed by the stripes taken on Jesus’
back. (Matt. 8:17.)
4. I have the ability to control my mind

and cast out evil thoughts.
(2 Cor. 10:4,5.)
5. I am poised for success and will not

accept any defeat as final.
(1 Cor. 15:57.)
6. I hate sin but love all people and

have favor everywhere I go.
(Prov. 12:2.)
>>
M other Nature is
providential. She gives us
twelve years to develop a
love for our children before
turning them
into teenagers.
William Calvin
Four
ÒLighten up!
IÕm not Billy Graham or
Mother Teresa!Ó
I n the last chapter we dealt with the fact

that parents are not perfect and shouldn’t act like they
are. But kids aren’t perfect either, and parents have to
deal with that head on. We all want our kids to be
great. We burst with pride every time they do some-
thing spectacular and brag to our friends about them.
Unfortunately, we also sink to the depths of despair or
become furious when they embarrass us by saying or
doing the wrong thing.
Teenagers often remind me that they are still learning

and trying to figure out how to do life, and they need
adults to understand that and give them some room to
grow. As Christian parents we need to stop expecting
our teenager to be another Billy Graham or Mother
Teresa. They are unique individuals who are trying to
discover who God made them to be and what He has
51
called them to do. Furthermore, they are trying to

figure out how to relate to us, to each other, and to the
world at large. With all that going on, there are going
to be times when their behavior will fall far short of
any of the great men and women of faith we want
them to be like.
What does “lighten up” really mean? What are our kids
saying to us? They are simply asking us to have
patience. And it’s been my experience that in order to
have patience, we also need to have endurance and
perseverance. We must understand and accept what
they are going through and determine to help them get
past it and grow up—no matter what it takes or how
long it takes.
Parenting a teenager is not a forty-yard dash. It is a

cross-country marathon where only the strong survive.
We have got to be in this thing for the long haul. I read
the other day that raising teenagers is like raising cats.
Neither teenagers nor cats turn their heads when you
call them by name, and cats and teenagers can lie on
the living room sofa for hours without moving, barely
even breathing. Worse yet, it seems like it takes forever
to get through to them.
You must have patience, endurance, and perseverance

to get through to kids. It takes time for them to under-
stand. It takes time and sometimes repeated effort on
your part before you see them gradually take respon-
sibility for their lives and achieve a healthy depen-
dence on God and independence from you. You have
to let out the rope wisely, slowly, and patiently, giving
52
“Lighten up! I’m not Billy Graham or Mother Teresa!”
them more and more freedom as they become more

and more responsible.
Putting Away Childish Things
The apostle Paul put it this way.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood

as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became
a man [or an adult], I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11
The Word of God reveals that there is a process of

moving from childhood to adulthood. Paul said that
in order to become a mature adult, he had to learn
how to put away his childish thinking, childish
talking, and childish behavior. The important thing
for us to remember is that it is a process and it takes
time. Therefore, it also takes patience, endurance,
and perseverance!
One of the biggest jobs of the parent is to patiently

work with their kids as they put away their childish
things, one thing at a time and sometimes several
things at a time. This is the process of moving from
adolescence to adulthood, and it is what a teenager’s
life is all about. They want to grow up. They want to
get big. They want to do big things. They want to
have more money. They want to go out on their own.
They want to hang out with their friends. They are
53
struggling to establish their own life and identity apart

from their family as well as within their family.
It is hard not to feel rejected when they do this, but

you can’t. You have to understand and be patient with
them. That doesn’t mean you don’t take an active
interest in what they are doing and who they are doing
it with; it just means you give them as much room as
you can to do that without your direct supervision.
When they were young, everywhere you went with

your friends, there they were, toddling along with you.
But now that they are older, they want to be with their
friends. And their childish toys have become adult
toys. They no longer race their toy cars across the
floor. Now they want to get a real car and drive places
with their friends and sometimes by themselves just to
feel like they are their own person.
They want things and you want things to supervise

their things. For example, they want a car and you
want a global positioning satellite system to know
where that car is at all times! They want money, so you
tell them to get a job. They want a boyfriend or girl-
friend who is cool. You want them to date the apostle
Paul or the Virgin Mary. They want freedom and you
want to see some sign that they are responsible. The
struggle is finding the balance in all this, the balance
of granting freedom and demanding responsibility as
they move from childhood to adulthood.
One of the things that has helped me to gauge when

my kids are ready for certain responsibilities and
54
>>
Their Age Who You Are

to Them
0-7 Child Protector

Commander
Figurehead
7-14 Adolescent Provider

Coach
Fuddy-Duddy
14-21 Young Adult Propeller

Counselor
Friend
55
activities is understanding the

stages of growth they are
>> going through. When you
recognize these stages, it is
much easier to either hold
Around fourteen them back or let them go on
because you know what their
your sweet kid maturity level is, what they can
disappears and in and cannot handle.
their place is
standing a teenager Three Stages of Growth
who knows I believe there are three stages

that our young people go
everything. They through, and each of these
want to make all stages is about seven years. The
first is childhood. Childhood
their decisions on lasts from birth to about age
their own, and they seven. They are dependent
upon you for nearly everything.
believe your role is You tell them when to get up,
when to go to sleep, when they
to let them.
can play, when they should rest,
what to wear, who they can play
with, what to eat and when, and
what to think about everything—God, family, church,
work, play, country, people, and this world.
The next stage is adolescence, which begins around

eight years old. Your kids go through a major change
because they start to form their own opinions and their
own personalities begin to emerge. They want to make
56
more of their own decisions. They want to pick out

their own clothes. Before they changed, you could put
anything you wanted on them, tell them they looked
great, and they were happy. After they change, they
look in the mirror and say, “I don’t like this dress. I
want to wear jeans to church. Everybody else does.”
In the beginning of the teenage years, during adoles-

cence, a lot happens. The boys have more hair, their
eyes and ears have gotten a little bigger, and they have
this goofy smile on their face. The girls discover
fashion and make-up and want to be like college girls
and models in the magazines. And as they approach
fourteen years of age, all are developing physically,
mentally, emotionally, and sexually at a tremendous
rate. They are trying to figure out how they fit into the
scheme of things at home, at school, at church, and in
the activities they are involved in. However, generally
they are happy—and so are you. You’re thinking how
much you enjoy your kid.
Then something major happens. Around fourteen your

sweet kid disappears and in their place is standing a
teenager who knows everything. This is the young
adulthood stage, which goes on from about fourteen
to twenty-one. It is during this time that they want to
put things on their body—aluminum, metal, heavy
objects—and this is very challenging to you. They
want to make all their decisions on their own, and
they believe your role is to let them. In other words,
you have become somewhat irrelevant unless they
need something from you.
57
Three Attitudes
As you go through these three stages, what you find is

that your kids change the way they think about you.
When they are ages one through seven—in the child-
hood stage—you’re their protector. You watch over
them. You care for them. You keep them out of traffic
and away from junk food.
When they are seven to fourteen years old—during

the adolescence stage—you’re their provider. You
drive them to all their lessons and sports events. You
get them the basketball shoes or the trumpet they
need to participate in the activities you take them to.
And you make certain that they have adult supervi-
sion (yours or someone you trust) wherever they go
in case they need something.
When they turn fourteen and even until they are

finishing college at twenty-one—during the young
adulthood stage—you’re their propeller. You help
them get where they want to go and help them to do
what they want to do. You send them out into the
world to be who God called them to be and do what
He called them to do.
When they enter the adolescent stage, you may long

for them to be children again, when you were their
commander and there were no questions or mutinies.
You just told them the way it was going to be and what
they were going to do, and that’s the way it went. If
there was any kind of disobedience or rebellion, you
disciplined them, instructed them, prayed with them,
58
loved them through it—and all was well. It was

common to hear them say, “Yes, Mommy. Yes, Daddy.”
In adolescence, they begin to question your judgment

a little bit more. You go from being commander to
coach. They won’t accept no without a reason. You
have to tell them why they are to live a certain way
or do things according to a particular standard. You
have to work with them and train them. Then, if
you’ve done your job as a commander and a coach,
in their young adulthood they will look to you as
their counselor.
As young adults, they have learned some things. They

have observed how different people live and the
consequences of their choices. They will want you to
give them advice when they are making big decisions.
They may not take your advice, but they still want it.
In these three stages your kids will also change the

way they see you. When they are children, they look
to you as a figurehead. You are the governor of their
home, their leader, their fearless commander who
knows everything just because you are so old.
When they become adolescents, you go from being

the figurehead to the fuddy-duddy. You’re not too
sharp anymore. You don’t quite know it all. They
figure out that you are still figuring some things out.
But if you really work with them and take the time to
develop a good relationship with them, by the time
they get to the young adult stage, you will have
become one of their most trusted friends. You have a
59
>>
If we’ve done our job as our kids

are growing up, if we’ve been
there to guide them, to lead
them, to coach them, to train
them, to spend time with them,
and to encourage them in all
God has called them to be and
do; then their young adult years,
especially the latter part, can be
terrific years.
60
friendship that is based on years of honesty, under-

standing, patience, respect—and in all this have shown
your love for them.
We Are Not the World
Today, television and movies portray teenagers, espe-

cially older teenagers, as disrespecting, distrusting, and
even hating their parents. This is the opposite of the
biblical view of the way it ought to be—and the way it
can be. If we’ve done our job as our kids are growing
up, if we’ve been there to guide them, to lead them, to
coach them, to train them, to spend time with them,
and to encourage them in all God has called them to
be and do; then their young adult years, especially the
latter part, can be terrific years. They still respect you
as a parent, but your relationship has grown into a
friendship, a camaraderie of love and trust.
What does it take to get to the place where they are

twenty-one and you are one of their closest friends,
confidants, and counselors? Patience, endurance, and
perseverance! And those character attributes are vital
because we are raising our kids in a world that is
opposed to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s
just that simple. To raise teenagers who love God and
serve Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength
in today’s world is no small task.
Our kids have to be taught that the standards of a child

of God are different than the standards of the world in
which they interact every day. They must understand
61
that following Jesus Christ and living according to His

Word and the Holy Spirit may not win them popular-
ity contests. Most kids love the challenge of standing
for truth against tremendous opposition, however. And
if they see you fight the good fight of faith and their
personal relationship with Jesus is strong, they will
gladly reject the deceptions and lies of the world to
live for the Lord.
On the other hand, if you don’t teach them how to

overcome the world, the devil, and their own carnal-
ity through the grace and strength of God’s Word and
His Spirit, and if you don’t fight the good fight of faith
yourself, then chances are your kids will not either.
They will gravitate toward worldly thinking and stan-
dards and eventually fall away from God altogether.
So in the process of giving them more and more
responsibility and freedom as they grow older, always
teach them God’s Word and encourage them to live
by His Spirit.
The Process of Leaving
The word “adolescent” is a combination of two Latin

words, which mean to grow up and to be nourished.1
We are to see that our kids increase in knowledge and
wisdom by feeding them all the good things in life.
The most important thing we feed our kids, of

course, is God’s Word. Giving them God’s Word as
we go about our daily lives is what connects them to
God. And all this is preparing us and them for the day
62
when they will leave us and start a family of their

own. This is why kids are always seeking more
freedom, more “space.”
In Mark 10:7 Jesus says, “For this reason a man shall

leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.”
What this tells parents is that we are training our
teenagers to be able to leave us and be able to form a
family of their own. Adolescence is a process of
leaving to establish another family for God.
Although we want them to be able to leave us physi-

cally and have a healthy and godly independence, we
never want them to leave us spiritually. We always
want them to share our faith in Jesus Christ. With this
in mind, I have learned a major truth for parenting
teenagers: If we don’t allow them to leave gradually
through the patient process of growing freedoms
matched by heightened accountability, when they do
finally leave, it’s unlikely they’ll ever come back. In
other words, if we hold on and don’t allow them to
gradually gain more freedom and earn more of our
trust, they will leave like a bird escaping from a cage
and never want to return.
The American Family in Crisis and Southern Baptist

Council on Family Life did a study that revealed some
disturbing facts. They found out that 88 percent of
the children raised in evangelical homes leave the
church at eighteen years of age and never return!
Somehow these parents are missing it. They’re failing
to do what is necessary to connect with their kids and
63
see that their kids are properly connected to Jesus

and His body.
In Proverbs 22:6 the Bible tells us that if we train or

coach our children in the way they should go—having
faith and trust in Jesus Christ—then when they are
older they won’t depart. They won’t leave Jesus or His
church. That doesn’t mean they’ll never make a
mistake, have times of testing, change denominations,
or question some of their beliefs. But they will never
make a conscious decision to say, “I reject the faith of
my parents. Jesus is no longer my Lord and I no longer
want to fellowship with other believers.”
Five Ways To Earn Freedom
How can we help our young people earn more

freedom? How can we help them to leave gracefully
through their older teenage years? Here are five things
that I tell my kids, which seem to have a great impact
on them.
1. Take your freedom in steps, not leaps.
So you want to increase your curfew. If you are faith-

ful to be in at ten on Friday nights for six months, then
we will make it eleven for the next six months. Let’s
set reachable goals that can lead to greater freedom
and more adult responsibility. I’m not going to rush
you, and you must get used to one level of responsi-
bility before you go to the next.
64
2. Never take your freedoms for granted or

you’ll lose them.
Respect and appreciate the freedoms I have given you

and the new opportunities you’ve earned as you show
you can handle them. Life is not a game, and what you
are doing is not trivial. Accepting the responsibility for
each new freedom is so important because each time
you do represents another stepping stone to reaching
maturity and integrity.
3. As a parent I have the right to find out

if you are abusing the freedom I’ve
given you.
I have the right to check up on

you. It is my duty to find out if
you were where you said you
were. I can put a GPS system
on your car if I want to. I can
>>
call and make sure that you are
really at a friend’s house and Your kids are
the parents are at home. I have
a right to smell your breath saying, “Lighten
after you’ve been to a party and
up!” because they
to go through your drawers and
closet to make certain you have want you to enjoy
not fallen into drinking or
drugs. Because you are still them as you train
young and under my care, I them to leave you.
have the right and the responsi-
bility to make you accountable
to me.
65
4. You’ve got to think before you act.
If you want more freedoms, you’ve got to think, to

process risk and look at the possible consequences of
your actions. Teenagers usually just think about what
they’re going to do, what they want to do, and what
they’re friends are doing, without thinking about the
long-term. I want you to move from instant gratifica-
tion thinking to action and reaction thinking. Think: If
I say or do this, what will happen? What are the possi-
bilities—good, bad, and ugly? Most important, is this
something God wants me to do?
5. If you want more freedom, you must

prove that you can govern and
discipline yourself.
You’ve got to show me that you are making decisions

to govern your life, that you are controlling your
emotions and disciplining your mind and body. I
shouldn’t have to tell you to do your homework. Your
mother shouldn’t have to tell you to clean up after
yourself. Once curfews are set, we shouldn’t have to
remind you of them, nor should we have to get you
up in the morning. When we see you govern and
discipline yourself in your daily life, we will gladly
give you more freedom.
Enjoy the Process
Your kids are also saying, “Lighten up!” because they

want you to enjoy them as you train them to leave
66
you. This is a hard order to fill because we want them

to be with us forever—most of the time (sometimes we
want them to be out of the house yesterday)! And,
while they appreciate the high expectations that you
have of them, they want room to grow and reasonable
growth at a reasonable pace.
If we understand the three major stages of growth; let

them have freedoms as they prove themselves respon-
sible and mature enough; and work on patience,
endurance, and perseverance—with them and with
ourselves—there is a great possibility that we can actu-
ally enjoy the process!
One thing is certain, however; it is impossible for us to

trust our kids with their own lives. We can only do
what God leads us to do and trust Him. We must go to
the foundations of our faith in Him: He knows what’s
best for each time and situation of their lives, and He
will never let us down. In reality, obeying and trusting
God is the only way we can enjoy the process of
letting go and then watch them go out on their own.
Without His love, grace, and exceeding great and
precious promises, I doubt any of us could handle our
kids growing older and becoming independent from
us. But with His help, we can do all things—even let
them go!
67
3 Stereotypes Your Teen Must
Overcome as a Follower of
Jesus Christ2
1. “Christians think they’re all perfect.”

We overcome this stereotype by being
quick to acknowledge God’s grace
and forgiveness in our lives. Paul
reminded the church that he was chief
of all sinners! We must humbly
acknowledge that without God’s
incredible mercy, we would be lost
and that we need His help every
moment of every day.
2. “Christians think they know every-

thing.” We conquer this stereotype by
simply being honest when we don’t
have an answer for someone. If your
teen is talking about God with a
friend and they bring up something
they’re not sure about, they can just
admit they don’t know the answer
but will do some research and try to
find out. Not knowing everything
about God doesn’t make Him any
less real to His children. After all, we
do know Him.
3. “Christians don’t have any fun.” This

one is easy. Tell your young person to
have fun and enjoy life. Fun isn’t
getting drunk or high, nor is it getting
into bed with a new person every
weekend. Fun is having great friends
who don’t need artificial activities to
enjoy life. There is no greater “high”
than knowing and being in the pres-
ence of Almighty God!
>>
C hildren seldom
misquote you. In fact, they
usually repeat word for word
what you shouldn’t have said.
Anonymous
Five
ÒÔBecause I said so,Õ
isnÕt good enough.Ó
Always be ready to give a logical defense to anyone

who asks you to account for the hope that is in you,
but do it courteously and respectfully
1 Peter 3:15 AMP
The Bible tells us to give a good and reasonable expla-

nation for what we believe, and that includes our kids.
We have to help them understand why we believe
what we believe, why we live the way we do, and why
we require certain things of them. Asking for blind
obedience of a child—when they are three or four
years old—is going to work. But if you expect blind
obedience when they are thirteen or fourteen—
without explaining why—it will produce rebellion. We
must always give some explanation for the rules and
guidelines that we set for them.
73
Communication Is Everything
We must learn to communicate our life values in a way

that our kids can understand. It’s important to relate our
beliefs to them by putting ourselves in their shoes. I’m
going to tell you a story that illustrates this principle. A
three-year-old boy was eating an apple in the backseat
of a car, and his father was driving. He said, “Daddy,
why is my apple turning brown?”
His dad looked at his little son

and said, “Well, after you ate
the skin off, the meat of the
>> apple came into contact with
the air, which caused it to
oxidize; thus changing the
Teenagers need to molecular structure and turning
it a different color.”
know the “why,”
not just the “what,” There was a long silence, and
the son asked softly, “Daddy,
and we have a are you talking to me?”
responsibility to That’s the way our teenagers
see that they feel when we don’t take the
time to explain things on their
understand why we level. Sometimes it takes
are requiring certain thought and effort on our part
to figure out how to explain
things of them. what we mean. The Bible
warns us that this is vitally
important with kids. When they
cannot understand what we are
74
“‘Because I said so,’ isn’t good enough.”
communicating to them, either they will think we are

making them feel stupid or they will be frustrated and
angry. Either way, if we communicate poorly or have
a lack of consideration for their age and level of under-
standing, we will only make the problem worse.
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to

wrath, but bring them up in the training and admo-
nition of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4
What this is telling us is that we must not only say the

right thing, but we must say it in the right way. If you
tell your teenagers they can’t do something and give
no explanation, then you will provoke them and make
them angry and upset. Teenagers need to know the
“why,” not just the “what,” and we have a responsibil-
ity to see that they understand why we are requiring
certain things of them.
Jesus said, “When anyone hears the word of the

kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked
one comes and snatches away what was sown in his
heart” (Matt. 13:19). So we’ve got a responsibility to
make sure that when we teach our kids the Word, they
understand it, that they’re getting it. Josh MacDowell
said it best.
Number 1: We teach the precept.
Number 2: We teach the principle.
75
Number 3: We teach the person.
As we help our teenagers grow

up, a lot of times we stop at the
precept. The precept is what
>> they need to do. But we need
to go to the next step and
explain why they are to do
What they something. That is the princi-
believe determines ple. For example, I will say to
my kids, “It says in 1
how they live their Corinthians 6:18 that we are to
lives. What they flee immorality. I want you to
live a pure life. I want you to
believe also keep your body pure. I don’t
want you getting into trouble
determines their
sexually.” I just gave them the
values and their precept. I told them what I
wanted them to do. Now, what
values determine is the principle behind the
their actions. precept, or why should they
flee sexual immorality?
The principle behind this

precept is that God created sex
in the context of love and
marriage. Sex is most pleasurable, remains pure, and
has no bad consequences when it remains within the
covenant of marriage. If you have sex outside of
marriage, you open yourself up for all kinds of trouble,
including disease and emotional problems. God gave
us Scriptures like 1 Corinthians 6:18 for our own
protection and pleasure.
76
I have given them the precept and the principle. Now

that brings me to the person, and the person is God. I
tell them, “God loves you. He’s pure and He’s faithful
to you. If He asks you to be faithful to your wife or to
your husband, then He will be faithful to bring you the
right mate at the right time. He’s going to be faithful to
reward your faithfulness and purity.”
When you communicate clearly and do your best not

to provoke your teenagers to wrath, you build trust
with them. And when your teenagers trust you, they
know that you will always tell them the truth—and the
whole truth.
The Truth Makes You Free
It’s really ironic that kids will put you through the
wringer when you tell them they can’t do something.
They need to know why, and the reason better be a
good one. But when it comes to knowing spiritual
truth, knowing what you believe and why you believe
it, they think that’s for preachers and parents. One of
the things I tell the kids at Oneighty as well as my own
kids is that you have to know what you believe. You
have to have an understanding of truth. Why? Because
the foundation of their lives is their beliefs.
Human beings will never make a decision that is

outside of what they believe to be true. What they
believe determines how they live their lives. What they
believe also determines their values—which is what
they believe is right and what they believe is wrong—
77
and their values determine their actions. Actions speak

louder than words when it comes to what you believe.
Let’s say you believe the Bible is the Word of God, and
the Bible says, “Thou shalt not lie.” That’s one of the
Ten Commandments. If you really believe it is God’s
Word, then not lying will be a core value in your life
and your behavior will be honest. You believe God’s
Word, which says that lying is bad; and as a result you
value honesty. The result of valuing honesty is that
you are an honest person. You respect honesty in
others. And you will not lie, even when it hurts you.
You are committed to the truth.
Why is this so important? How does this affect your

life? You will never be fired from a job because you
lied. You will never be expelled from school because
you cheated on a test. Your spouse, kids, friends, and
family will trust you because you are always honest
with them. You are going to save yourself from all
kinds of pain and problems not only because you
know what you believe, but also because you believe
the right things—God’s Word—and your values and
actions reflect what you believe.
If you decide you don’t believe God’s Word, you

believe instead that it is okay to lie, you give no value
to honesty, and you lie habitually, you will suffer for
it. You may lose a job or be cut from a sports team
because you lied. You may not pass a class because
you cheated, and if this goes on your high school
record, you may not get into the college of your
choice. Your spouse, kids, friends, and family will not
78
trust you because you have lied to them. The result of

your decision to not believe God’s Word, which says
that lying is a sin and therefore wrong behavior, is a
lot of pain and suffering in your life.
What we need to get through to kids is that God didn’t

write the Bible to make our lives miserable. He wrote
it so that we could have the wisdom and strength to
do right and accomplish His will for our lives—which
is the only way we can be happy and fulfilled in life.
He made us and He knows what will give us pleasure
and satisfaction.
Demonstrate and Illustrate
When you are teaching kids, you have to illustrate

your point. Demonstrating what you’re trying to get
across to them not only shows them how life works in
a tangible way, but also it emphasizes the importance
of what you are saying to them.
One day I illustrated the value and importance of

sexual purity in our youth group by using a couple of
cans of Coke. First, I took a warm can of Coke,
popped it open, and asked one of the kids if he’d like
to have a drink of it. He said yes and took a drink.
Then I asked another teenager, “Would you like a
drink?” She said yes and took a drink. I continued to
pass the can around until there was only a little left,
and about four kids had taken a drink from it. At that
point there was nothing but backwash left.
79
I said, “Who’d like to finish it off?” Very few kids

wanted to, but there was one bold, big guy who
yelled, “I’ll do it!” He slugged it down. Kids were
screaming, getting grossed out, and the kid who was
drinking the dregs of the Coke was doing it to be seen
and to make a scene. When he was finished I took the
empty can and put it down in front of me, where they
all could see it. Then I reached into a cooler full of ice
and pulled out a fresh can of ice-cold Coke. I held it
up and I said, “You know what? I’m not going to share
this with anyone. I’m not going
to pass this around. And I’d like
to know something. Is there
one teenager here who would
>> like to polish off this can of
Coke all by yourself?”
Show them Every kid in the place started

hollering, “I will! I will!” They
what the Bible all wanted that can of Coke.
says and challenge Finally, I invited one kid to
come up, and he drank it all
them to study it down. The kids cheered him
and seek God for on as he was drinking, and he
finished with a big smile on his
themselves if they face. What kids get excited
about always amazes me.
don’t agree with
you or have some I said, “Listen, guys. When you
get married one day, God wants
problem with it. you to be a fresh can of Coke.
He doesn’t want you to be an
emotional, sexual, spiritual
80
backwash because you messed around with every

person who came into your life romantically. If you do
that, by the time you do meet the right one, you will
have so much impurity in your life you won’t know
what to think or do. You might not even recognize the
right one for you. That’s why God wants you to be
clean. He wants you to be pure. He wants you to be
that fresh can of Coke on your marriage night. If
you’ve already messed up, God will forgive your sin
and give you a brand-new start. No matter where you
are in this, let’s make a commitment of purity to Him
right now and keep it.”
The reaction of the kids to my simple demonstration

was awesome. For the first time some of them finally
figured it out. “Oh. I get it! That’s why it says, ‘flee
fornication.’ That’s why it says, ‘when you commit
sexual immorality, you’re hurting your own body’!
You’re getting backwash into your body. We don’t
want that. We want to be pure. I want to be a fresh can
of Coke!”
Of course, one big kid came up to me after the

meeting and said, “Pastor Blaine, can I be a fresh can
of Diet Coke?” But he got the point!
Getting Them To Think
To sum up, here are five things to help you get your
point across when dealing with the adolescent brain.
81
1. Let them explain their position.
“Tell me what you think. How are you seeing this

issue? I want to hear what’s in your heart concerning
this problem. You just go ahead and let it all out.”
Then you listen carefully. You’ll be able to identify
exactly where they are and what they’re thinking, what
they’ve been going through, and what their friends
have been telling them. And, most important, you’ll
know what to say and do. If they are okay, you can
compliment them and reward them. If they are out to
lunch, you can develop a strategy with the Holy Spirit
to bring them around.
2. Tell them the “why” and the “who” and

not just “what.”
Help them to understand the reason for what you are

asking or commanding them to do, always bringing in
God’s point of view. Show them what the Bible says
and challenge them to study it and seek God for them-
selves if they don’t agree with you or have some
problem with it.
3. Let them ask questions.
After you’ve talked about it and given them the “why”

and the “who,” don’t stop there. Let them raise ques-
tions or ask them if they have any questions. Then
work with them. If you don’t know the answer, say so,
and do the research together.
82
4. Learn to illustrate and demonstrate.
Jesus was a great illustrator. If you read the Sermon on

the Mount out loud, as if Jesus were actually teaching
it, you would find out that it lasted sixteen minutes
from start to finish. In the process of the sixteen
minutes, He used sixty-seven different illustrations,
which is about 4.2 illustrations per minute. He was a
master illustrator. He wanted people to see a natural
example of a spiritual truth—and He still does!
5. Work through the process until you come

into agreement.
You’ve found out what their position is. You’ve

explained the “what,” the “why,” and the “who.”
You’ve let them ask questions. You’ve illustrated and
demonstrated every way you can think. Then you
continue to work through that process until you come
into agreement. This is critical. You and your teenager
have to understand the truth and agree to the truth if
it takes five minutes or five hours. You can’t let them
go on their way and still be at odds with you and the
Word of God.
After you have come into agreement, you can pray

together to seal the deal with the Holy Spirit. When
you take the time to go through this process with your
kids, they know that if they go out and do the right
thing, they will be one step closer to getting more
freedom. But more important, they will have the peace
of mind that can only come from knowing what they
83
believe and why they believe it—and you will be able

to send them forth with trust and confidence.
84
7 Scriptures To Guide Your
Teen’s Future1
1. Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the

thoughts that I think toward you, says
the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of
evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
2. Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to Me, and I will

answer you, and show you great
and mighty things, which you do
not know.”
3. Joshua 1:8: “This Book of the Law

shall not depart from your mouth, but
you shall meditate in it day and night,
that you may observe to do according
to all that is written in it. For then you
will make your way prosperous, and
then you will have good success.”
4. Proverbs 18:16: “A man’s gift makes

room for him, and brings him before
great men.”
5. Ephesians 3:20: “Now to Him who is
able to do exceedingly abundantly
above all that we ask or think, accord-
ing to the power that works in us.”
6. 2 Timothy 1:9: “Who has saved us and

called us with a holy calling, not
according to our works, but according
to His own purpose and grace which
was given to us in Christ Jesus before
time began.”
7. Ephesians 5:15: “See then that you

walk circumspectly, not as fools but
as wise.”
>>
I f kids clearly see the

promises, they will gladly pay
the price.
Anonymous
Six
ÒGive me direction
because IÕve
never been where
IÕm going.Ó
T oday’s teenager is going into a world that

they’ve never experienced. They’re attempting things
and doing things that they’ve never done. Maybe you
remember what it was like when you were growing up
and you didn’t know what it was like to have a girl-
friend or boyfriend. You didn’t know what it was like
to have a job, a paycheck, a bank account—and a
hundred dollars in your bank account. And what about
driving a car for the first time?
Everything is new for a young person. They continu-

ally experience new things, and they want to know
how to do these things right. They want to be success-
ful. They want to make the right decisions.
Unfortunately, they often make their choices according
89
to where they are getting their information. Some get

input from their parents and take their parents seri-
ously, but every teenager really wants their parents to
give them the knowledge and wisdom they need to be
successful in life.
Most kids get their information from their classes in

school, television, the Internet, magazines, and their
peers. There is nothing wrong with becoming knowl-
edgeable about the world in
this way. Facts, in and of them-
selves, will not harm them and
>> may actually give them answers
to some of their questions. But
knowledge without the founda-
Kids today want to tion of truth from the Bible and
be spiritual. They the divine leading of the Holy
Spirit can get a kid into tremen-
want to know God. dous trouble. Unless they have
the wisdom of God to put all
They have a deep
that information in proper
yearning and perspective, they are lost. And
that wisdom comes as they
hunger to do the study the Bible, follow the Holy
right things and to Spirit, listen to their godly
parents, and glean from other
be spiritual people, Christian friends and elders.
but they don’t have
Whether our kids seem to want
the right our input or not, God specifi-
cally calls us to train our kids
information.
to rely on His Word and His
Spirit. We are the ones He
90
“Give me direction because I’ve never been where I’m going.”
expects to get them the right information and point

them in the right direction.
How Are We Doing?
Here are a few statistics from the Barna Research

Group that you might find interesting.
1. Among teenagers, what we see is that we will

continue to get from them well-intentioned but
misinformed faith perspectives that lead to bad
choices and spiritual confusion.
2. Eighty-six percent of teenagers who claim to

be Christian are confused about their Christian
beliefs and are theologically complacent.
3. Sixty percent of these young people, who

claim to be followers of Christ, believe that
their salvation is earned by work.
4. Two-thirds of the teenagers in America believe

that Satan is a symbol of evil rather than a
living, real being.
5. F i f t y - t h ree percent of Christian young

people surveyed believe that Jesus was not
actually perfect.1
This tells us that kids today want to be spiritual. They

want to know God. They have a deep yearning and
hunger to do the right things and to be spiritual
91
people, but they don’t have the right information.

They believe that they are Christians but are confused
about what a Christian believes and how a Christian
should live.
From this survey, the majority of teenagers believe that

in order to get into heaven, they have to prove them-
selves to God. This is what the
Bible calls dead works. Yes,
James 2:14-26 tells us that faith
without works is dead, but
>> James is talking about after we
are saved. We are first saved by
faith, and then our works must
When young people be inspired by faith in God and
led by His Spirit and His Word.
have no vision to Works alone will not save
anyone. Why? Because then
see down the road,
redemption and reconciliation
they don’t know to God are based on our works
instead of the redemptive work
how to live their of Jesus. (See Ephesians 2:8-9.)
lives. Their present
If teenagers are not being
has meaning only taught the basic foundations of
when they see the the faith such as being saved
by grace through faith in the
purpose and plan of shed blood of Jesus, then it is
no mystery why they are so
their future.
confused. Furthermore, if a kid
doesn’t believe Satan is a being
to contend with, they will not
recognize the enemy’s attacks
92
or know how to overcome them. This makes them

vulnerable to demonic activity and oppression. And
where did kids in this survey get the idea that there
had to be a time during Jesus’ life on earth when He
sinned? If they got it from a movie or a book of fiction,
their parents and church youth leaders didn’t do
anything to correct their ignorance.
Do you see that we have a generation of young people

who are really hungry for spirituality, to find out what
spiritual life is all about, but they’re getting very little
biblical truth? That means parents and churches are
not doing what God directed them to do: train up their
children in the way they should go.
When the Word of God is not taught at home, not only

do kids have no firm foundation for faith in God, but
they also have no direction in their lives. That’s why
we have a whole generation of young people who,
through all their rebellion, disrespect, and acting out,
are crying, “Give me direction!” Without God in their
lives, they have no solid direction, no peace that
passes all understanding that they are on the right path
and doing the right thing.
Kids Need a Vision
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he

that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Proverbs 29:18 KJV
93
Young people need a vision, but of all the young

people on this planet, those in the Church should have
the greatest vision and sense of purpose. The Bible
says that without vision, the people perish. They have
no ability to see down the road. And when young
people have no vision to see down the road, they
don’t know how to live their lives. Their present has
meaning only when they see the purpose and plan of
their future.
When teenagers have a vision for their future they will

make decisions that are going to be for their good.
Why? Because they want to do the right thing, make a
difference, and impact their world. They want to take
the steps necessary to win their race. Show a kid the
prize, and they will run to win. When our teenagers
know and understand the promises of God, they will
live their lives for God knowing that their love for Him
and faithfulness to Him will bring great rewards in this
life and for eternity.
Kids must be taught that blessings flow into their lives

because they obey the Word of God and follow the
Holy Spirit, have pure hearts before Jesus Christ, treat
their friends right, and respect authority. God protects
them, provides for them, gives them joy, peace, and
fulfillment—and life is an adventure. If they see these
promises, then they will passionately and happily pay
the price to live a life that honors God.
Parents are not only responsible to teach their kids the

Word of God, but along with that is the responsibility
to impart God’s vision for their lives into them. The
94
world’s philosophy of parenting today is, “Let your

kids figure it out on their own. Educate them, then let
them choose their own beliefs.” There is a truth in that.
Ultimately they will choose what they believe and how
they will live. They have free will. But the Word of
God gives a completely opposite view to parenting.
God’s Word says that we have a responsibility to
provide spiritual direction.
Proverbs 22:6 says that parents are to train up their

children in the way they should go. Notice, it does not
say “in the way they want to go,” “in the way their
friends go,” or “in the way the world says to go.” It
clearly states that there is a way they should go—ONE
way. If we had any doubts, Jesus cleared it all up
when He said in John 14:6, “I am THE way.”
Proverbs 22:6 goes on to say that if we train them up

in the way they should go—the way of Jesus Christ—
then when they are old they will not depart from it.
God is saying, “You know what? I want you to help
your kids. I don’t want you to leave them alone or
throw them to the wolves in the world. I want you to
guide your young people. Guide them to Me.”
And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what

I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a
great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the
earth shall be blessed in him? For I have known
him, in order that he may command his children
and his household after him, that they keep the way
of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that
95
the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has

spoken to him.”
Genesis 18:17-19
God says, “I’m going to tell Abraham what I’m doing,”

not because Abraham is such a great guy or even
because he’s got faith in Him. No, God trusts Abraham
because he will “command his children and his
household after him, that they will keep the way of
the Lord.”
The reason that God chose Abraham to be a father of

our faith is because He knew that this man would give
spiritual direction to every person in his household.
He knew that this man would instruct his kids in the
ways of the Lord. He knew that when Isaac—the
promised son—came, Abraham would give him a
godly spiritual education, teaching him to live accord-
ing to God’s Word—and a powerful vision for his life.
Blessings for You Too
This is amazing! God chose Abraham because he

could trust him to teach his children and grandchildren
the Word of God. And then He made Abraham a father
of many nations, both spiritual and natural. Abraham
was perhaps more influential in the world’s history
than anyone except Jesus Himself.
Think about it. Abraham was the first Jew and the
nation of Israel came from his line. Abraham also was
96
the father of Ishmael and the Arab nations. Most

important, his line brought forth the Messiah, Jesus, on
whom we believe for salvation. But it all started with
a man who would teach his children God’s Word and
require them to walk in it.
Do you know that when you

make a solemn commitment to
give spiritual direction to your >>
kids, God marks you? He says,
“I’m going to make you a
leader. I’m going to bless you. I The blessings God
will give you favor and influ-
ence, which will open doors of has for you go on in
opportunity for you. If I can your lifetime and for
trust you with My kids, then I
can trust you with other things.” many generations
to come, but when
Not only does God bless you in
your outward life, but He you train up your
blesses you in your relationship
with Him. In Genesis 18:19, children and your
God says, “For I have known children’s children
him,” and He’s referring to
Abraham. The Hebrew word in the way they
translated “known” is the word should go, it also
yada, and it means “to ascertain
by seeing.” It also can mean affects your
observation, care, and recogni-
community and
tion.2 It implies a close friend-
ship. God was saying that He your nation.
had a special relationship with
Abraham. He knew him inside
97
and out, and He knew that Abraham would raise his

kids the way He wanted him to raise them.
Train Up a Kid and

Change Your Nation
The blessings God has for you go on in your lifetime

and for many generations to come, but when you train
up your children and your children’s children in the
way they should go, it also affects your community
and your nation. God wanted Abraham to keep Isaac
in the right path because other folks were not doing
that, particularly in two cities called Sodom and
Gomorrah. They were in such a sinful state that God
could not allow them to continue or else they would
contaminate other cities.
Sodom actually means “to scorch; burnt,”3 and

Gomorrah actually means “a ruined heap; chastised
with piling blows.”4 Even the world is well aware of
God’s destruction of these infamous cities because
they were so evil. And God did not want Abraham’s
household and especially Isaac to end up in Sodom
and in Gomorrah.
Today America bears a great resemblance to Sodom

and Gomorrah in many ways. Sin and evil abound
here, primarily because generations of Christians did
not train their kids in the way they should go. And
God doesn’t want our kids in a spiritual Sodom and
Gomorrah. He doesn’t want them scorched and
burned in eternal hellfire. He doesn’t want them
98
walking in a sinful lifestyle, where He has to chastise

with piling blows, and they must go through all kinds
of difficulty.
I’m sure you know many people who are messed up

adults. They are addicted to drugs or alcohol. They’re
hooked on pornography. They can’t be faithful to one
person in marriage, so after a series of divorces they
just go from partner to partner. They’re lying, cheating,
and even committing crimes to get rich quick. How do
these people end up this way? What is the root cause?
A large part of these problems

goes back to how they were
raised by their parents. Their
parents either didn’t know
Jesus and have His wisdom to
>>
raise them, or they knew Him
but didn’t obey His Word God wants His
regarding their kids. They may
not have loved their kids young people to be
enough or had the courage to
a testimony in their
give them instruction in right-
eousness and require them to world. He wants the
know and live by God’s Word.
world to look at His
One fact must be faced. It takes kids and say, “How
courage to live your life and
raise your kids according to the did these kids turn
Word of God in America today.
out so well?”
The Church is growing and
gaining more ground in educa-
tion, government, and other
99
areas. However, the devil is not lying down and rolling

over. He isn’t just going to give up. He’s made a lot of
progress in the last fifty years, and he will not give up
the territory he’s won without a fight.
It takes pure guts to raise godly children in today’s

modern society, but the rewards are well worth the
persecution and the difficulties. And training our kids
in the ways of God is at the heart of what Jesus told
us we were to do: make disciples of all nations.
What will happen to your kids if you take a loving,

strong hand and give them direction, instruct them in
the ways of the Lord, exhort them to follow the Holy
Spirit, and teach them God’s Word? What’s the pay-
off? Since Abraham is our prototype, let’s see how
Isaac did.
Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the

same year a hundredfold; and the LORD blessed
him. The man began to prosper, and continued
prospering until he became very prosperous; for he
had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds
and a great number of servants. So the Philistines
envied him.
Genesis 26:12-14
Years after growing up under Abraham, we find Isaac

sowing, reaping, prospering, being blessed of God,
and so wealthy that the entire Philistine nation envied
100
him. How would you like your teenager to be the envy

of their world in whatever career they chose?
God wants His young people to be a testimony in their

world. He wants the world to look at His kids and say,
“How did these kids turn out so well?” And when they
ask, your kids will give honor and glory to God
because of the principles that they learned from their
parents as they were growing up.
What happened to Isaac can happen to your

teenagers. You just need to do what Abraham did and
train them in the ways of the Lord.
Just How Much Direction Do You Give?
How do you do this? I want to give you a principle

called One Minute Parenting, and I got it right from the
Bible. Here’s the same passage from Deuteronomy 6
that we looked at earlier from The Message translation.
Write these commandments that I’ve given you

today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and
then get them inside your children. Talk about them
wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the
street; talk about them from the time you get up in
the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie
them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder;
inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and
on your city gates.
Deuteronomy 6:6-9 MESSAGE
101
Notice that before we can do anything with our kids,

we need to get the Word of God in ourselves. If we
read, study, and meditate on God’s Word, there is an
excellent chance our children will do the same. If we
don’t do these things, there is an excellent chance they
won’t either.
God tells us that we are to teach our children the Word

and talk about the Word continuously throughout their
daily activities. We are literally to write the Word on
ourselves and our houses. In other words, we are to
live God’s Word before them. The Word of God is to
be everywhere, at all times, guiding us in all situations.
He gives us eight ways to get His Word into the lives
of young people.
1. Sitting at home.
Even if you are watching television together, ask them

questions or make comments that will cause them to
compare what they are watching with what God’s
Word has to say. You don’t need to have a three-hour
discussion. Just take a minute to relate what you are
experiencing to biblical principles.
2. Walking in the street.
Some families take walks together, and that’s a good

time to have discussions about various topics that
interest your teenager and slip in a one-minute
message here and there. But when are you usually in
the street? When you’re driving. Pray and speak the
Word of God over them as you drive them to school,
102
>>
A military ritual of family devotions

was never God’s main plan. His idea
of imparting the Word was to give it
in bite-size pieces during the day
and let your kids chew on it for a
while. Then your kids will remember
special moments you had with them
instead of a long, tedious devotional
time that they dreaded every day!
103
a sports event, or a music lesson. Relate the Word to

anything they are concerned about.
3. When you get up in the morning.
When you’re having breakfast, say a quick prayer to

bless the meal and have a great day. Talk about what
you are facing that day and remind your teenager how
blessed they are.
4. When you go to bed at night.
Kids always sleep much better when you pray over

them or with them at bedtime. Ephesians 4:26 says that
we should not go to sleep filled with anger, so this is
the time to make certain your teenagers have forgiven
all those who have offended and hurt them.
5. Tie them on your hands.
What do we put on our hands? Rings and bracelets. In

our church we give our young people a purity ring
when they graduate from the discipleship program. It’s
something they can put on their hands to remind them
of their commitment to be sexually pure. Teenagers
are always putting some kind of bracelet on. The
“WWJD”—what would Jesus do—bracelets were very
popular for a while.
6. Tie them on their foreheads.
Today we wear ball caps. We’ve got Oneighty ball

caps, and there are all kinds of Christian ball caps that
104
have things on them to remind kids of who they are

in Christ, what they believe, and the great calling on
their lives.
7. Inscribe them on the doorposts of your

homes.
Many Christians have welcome mats or plaques that

have Scriptures written on them. But doorposts can
also be the frame of your computer, the refrigerator
door, the bathroom walls, and other places where you
can put Scripture verses.
8. Inscribe them on the city gates.
The Bible says that even when you go into the world,
into the city, you can help them to remember God.
First, by taking them to church, you are taking them
out in the world to a place where God’s Word is
taught, believed, honored, and lived. And when you
get to know the history of your city, you can teach
your kids what the godly and ungodly influences have
been through the years and how that has brought the
city to where it is today.
Most of these things take just a minute to do. Many

parents may do a long devotional every night. That
can wear their kids out and bore them. They get tired
of it and begin to resent the things of God. A military
ritual of family devotions was never God’s main plan.
We can see from this passage in Deuteronomy 6 that
His idea of imparting the Word was to give it in bite-
size pieces during the day and let your kids chew on
105
it for a while. Then your kids will remember special

moments you had with them instead of a long, tedious
devotional time that they dreaded every day!
What About Discipline?
We know kids are looking for direction from their

parents in spiritual matters, but what about good old-
fashioned discipline? There was a study of American
students from the seventh grade through the twelfth
grade several years ago. The researchers found out the
top things that kids think are the major problems in
society today. Number 4 on their list was a lack of
parental discipline!
You would think that high school kids would never

have even thought of parental discipline. Wouldn’t you
expect them to say, “Oh, man! We love not having
discipline. We like it when our parents ignore us and
let us do what we want to do.” But they didn’t say that.
They said, “We want parental direction and discipline.”
How do we give our young people correction or

discipline? If there’s an adjustment that needs to be
made with our teenager, how do we do that? How do
we do it in the right way? We find some of the
answers in another survey, in which one hundred
thousand teenagers across the nation were asked
what they wanted most from their parents. Here are
some of their responses:
106
>>
Young people may act like they

wish you lived on a different planet,
but they really want your guidance
and direction when it comes to their
spiritual lives. They also want your
correction and discipline when it
comes to their natural lives.
107
1. Answer our questions.
2. Don’t fight with us.
3. Never lie to us.
4. Praise our good points.
What they are basically asking for is real personal

interaction with their parents. They want good, honest
communication. They’re crying out for their parents to
talk to them, but they also want them to speak the
truth in love. Following are seven mistakes that
parents make in correcting or disciplining their kids.
1. They talk down to their kids.
This can be with an attitude or through body language.

If you are taller than your kid or standing when they
are sitting or lying down, you will seem to hover over
them. This physical position plus a haughty, preachy
attitude will drive them away fast! And don’t get your
Bible out and just start nailing them. You need to be
strong with your kids, but get on their level and speak
to them with respect. Talk face to face. Be clear about
what you believe, what you understand is going on,
and what you expect from them. Treat them with
respect and they will do the same to you.
2. They don’t listen.
Before you discipline, you must ask your young

person for their side of the story. Give them a chance
108
to accept responsibility for their actions or explain a

possible misunderstanding. Ask them, “Tell me what
you believe happened here, and I’ll tell you what I
know. Then we’ll decide what to do.”
3. They administer unjust punishment.
Think of the rebellion we would have in America

today if every time we got a speeding ticket we were
sentenced to five years in prison. An example of this
with kids is when a parent grounds a kid for a year
because they didn’t pick up their room. Unjust punish-
ment causes riots—in prisons and with kids. Make sure
the punishment fits the crime.
4. They give them the silent treatment.
Parents can get so angry at their teenagers that they just

refuse to talk to them. They freeze them out and reject
them. This can be very hurtful and cause the teenager
to draw further away from them in the long run.
5. They compare them to their other siblings.
“Why can’t you do the dishes the way Jimmy or Sally

does them? You are just as smart as your brother and
sister, so why aren’t your grades as high?” All this does
is cause strife and jealousy between siblings, bringing
more trouble into the family. Kids like to be treated as
God sees them: unique individuals.
109
6. They take out their bad moods on them.
If you had a bad day at the office and your boss didn’t
treat you right, Johnny or Janey shouldn’t have to pay
for your employer’s lack of integrity. When things in
your life get tough, you need to pray and get help
from your spouse, Christian friends, or a pastor—then
discipline your teenager. If the problem is something
you can share with your young person, then do it. Ask
them to pray for you. You build their confidence and
self-esteem by sharing your life with them. The impor-
tant thing is to keep your problems from creating more
problems between you and your kids.
7. They never mention the Word of God

or pray.
The worst thing we can do to a teenager is to correct

them and discipline them without giving them a bibli-
cal reason. It’s so important that they see that our
correction isn’t just what we want but is based upon
God’s principles and wisdom. Then, if they want to
argue, they will have to argue with Him! Also, if we
pray for them and with them, taking them and their
concerns to the Lord, He can soften their hearts and
minds toward His Word.
Just remember that young people may act like they

wish you lived on a different planet, but they really
want your guidance and direction when it comes to
their spiritual lives. They also want your correction
and discipline when it comes to their natural lives. Be
there for them and train them, take an active interest
110
in them, give them God’s Word whenever you can,

and see if they are blessed and become the envy of
their world.
111
6 Careers Your Teen Can Start
Right Now5
1. Newspaper business. Throw a paper

route, write articles on community
happenings and submit them to local
publications, or start or contribute to a
school paper.
2. Investment broker. There are compa-

nies that will take investment capital
of just $50. They can learn how the
market works and start investing a
little at a time.
3. Graphic arts. If they have a bent for

drawing and art, offer your assistance
to find a place to use their gift. Some
kids are already designing logos and
Web sites for companies and churches.
4. Film and video production. With an

inexpensive camera and some soft-
ware, they can be in the movie biz
and produce projects or record school
games and contests.
5. Lawn care. If you have a mower and a
weed-eater, have them distribute flyers
in their neighborhood and sign up
accounts to cut and trim grass after
school and all summer.
6. Child care. Encourage them to get

certified from the Red Cross or another
organization. Then help pass the word
that they are available to families for
quality baby-sitting services.
>>
T eenagers complain
there’s nothing to do, then
stay out all night doing it.
Bob Phillips
Seven
ÒQuit saying no
and give me an
alternative.Ó
T here is nothing worse to a teenager than

being told no—and nothing else is said. When this
happens, they feel like they have just been shut down
with no place to go and nothing to do. “No” has
placed them in a vacuum, wondering what to do next.
You can show your teenagers that you really care
about them by offering viable alternatives to sin and to
the world’s idea of fulfillment and pleasure. This will
make you a hero in their eyes. God never just tells us
no. He always gives us an alternative.
Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what

the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with
wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the
Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks
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always for all things to God the Father in the name

of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another
in the fear of God.
Ephesians 5:17-21
God gives us lots of stuff to do instead of sinning and

messing up. He says, “Listen, I’ve got something better
for you. You don’t need this false high of drugs and
alcohol that the world offers. You can be filled with
the power of the Holy Spirit. You can enjoy having
the Spirit of God inside of
you—and He won’t give you a
hangover! Instead, He’ll give
you joy unspeakable and full
>> of glory. He’ll show you which
direction to take and give you
wisdom to get where He’s
Your kids need to called you to go.”
know that when
“Just say no” has become an
they live for God— American catch phrase, but it’s
not God’s way of doing things.
developing That’s why just saying no to our
Christlike character kids backfires on us. All it does
is frustrate them and make
and behavior—their them angry.
lives are going to be
so much better. Fathers, do not irritate and
provoke your children to
anger [do not exasperate them
to resentment], but rear them
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“Quit saying no and give me an alternative.”
[tenderly] in the training and discipline and the

counsel and admonition of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4 AMP
God says, “I want you to help your kids. Don’t make

them mad by just saying no. Admonish them, give
them counsel, provide direction, train them. Give them
things to do and instructions on how to do them in a
wise and godly way—and make it interesting and fun
if possible.” Let’s talk about three different scenarios
that a lot of parents deal with and discuss some alter-
natives we could provide.
Alternatives to Rebellion and

Bad Attitudes
How do you handle worldly attitudes and rebellion in

your kids? Do you tell them, “Stop acting that way,” “I
don’t want you doing that,” or “Change your attitude”?
Obviously, they need to be told that their attitude and
behavior are not acceptable to God, but we also need
to tell them about the benefits of being Christlike
instead. They need to see the good things that can
happen when they make the right decisions and keep
a good attitude.
Your kids need to know that when they live for God—
developing Christlike character and behavior—their
lives are going to be so much better. They’re going to
enjoy life more. They’re going to have better relation-
ships. One day they’re going to have a better marriage.
119
They’re going to have a better job. They’re going to go

further in life. They’re going to have more success.
They will sleep in peace at night and walk in peace
during the day. Everything is better when you serve
God and have a Christlike attitude.
A good passage of Scripture to read to them is

Deuteronomy 28. In the first part of the chapter God
declares all the blessings that believers walk in when
they love and serve Him with their whole hearts. In
the second part of the chapter He names all the curses
that come upon those who reject Him or turn away
from Him. Read these with your teenager and relate
the blessings and the curses to what’s going on in the
world today. It’s not hard to see that walking by God’s
Word and His Spirit is the best way to live.
You also need to tell your kids that even the world is
discovering and recognizing what God says in
Deuteronomy 28. There were some interesting studies
done by the National Center for Addiction and
Substance Abuse. They compared young people who
had a deep faith in Jesus Christ or who seriously prac-
ticed a religion to teenagers who downplay faith, reli-
gion, and spirituality. They concluded that those who
did not practice their religion were three times more
likely to drink, to binge drink, and to smoke. They
were four times more likely to use marijuana and
seven times more likely to use illicit drugs.
They also found that those teenagers who attended

religious services weekly also did much better. The
kids who never attended services were twice as likely
120
to drink and to smoke, three times as likely to use

marijuana and binge drink, and four times more likely
to use illicit drugs—all of which could not only
shorten their lives but also make their lives difficult
and miserable.
Our kids need to know that if they fool around with

these things, they will develop addictions to them, and
addition leads to terrible misery in life. If they marry,
their relationship will be difficult. Their kids will be
adversely affected by the addiction, and holding a
job—not to mention succeeding at it and enjoying it—
will be next to impossible.
These facts and statistics rein-

force the wisdom of living for
Jesus Christ instead of living for >>
ourselves and according to the
world’s standards. Kids can
easily see how much better Would you want
their lives will be when they to get up on
live for God. They can also see
the privilege and honor of Sunday morning if
serving Him in this world. It’s
you heard your
not that you have to—you get
to! It is a tremendous adventure father or mother
to live a life of faith in God and
to do great exploits for Him.
yell, “Come on! Get
up! We have to
Years ago a woman did a news
report on Oneighty for the CBS go to church!”?
Early Show. After we did the
segment, she said, “You know,
121
ever since I filed that report I’ve never been able to

stop thinking about the impact that you were having
with kids. It made a serious impact on my life and how
I’m raising my fourteen-year-old daughter.” We sent
her a Oneighty worship CD for background music to
the piece, and she called and said, “There’s power in
that music. It’s really good!”
Even the world sits up and takes notice when you are
making a difference in kids’ lives. And we need to
communicate the blessings of being a Christian and
being part of a Christian community to our own kids
so that they will never take their faith and their rela-
tionship with God and His people for granted.
We often take for granted what we have in our church

families and Christian communities here in America.
We have the freedom to worship God as the Holy
Spirit leads us without fear of torture or prison. But
even more than that, we have a family of believers
who are there to pray for us, believe with us, intercede
for us, encourage us, inspire us, feed us the Word of
God, and be those friends who stick closer than our
natural siblings. When we take this great blessing for
granted, our kids will too. We need to remind them
more often that they are loved by God, by us, and by
their church family.
If you’re excited about your relationship with Jesus

Christ, then your kids are going to be excited about
their relationship with Him. If you’re excited about
going to services—hearing and learning the Word,
experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit, and
122
fellowshipping with other believers—then your kids

are going to be excited also. They’re going to take
their cues from you.
Would you want to get up on Sunday morning if you

heard your father or mother yell, “Come on! Get up!
We have to go to church!”? I don’t think so, especially
if you never had anything good to say about your rela-
tionship with God the rest of the week. But if you are
continuously living the adventure of faith with your
kids, on Sunday morning when they hear, “Good
morning! It’s time to get up and see what God has to
say to us today,” they will more likely be excited about
God themselves.
What all this boils down to is that if you are living and
presenting God’s way of thinking and behaving, when
your kid gets a bad attitude or acts in a rebellious
manner, it will stick out like a sore thumb. If your
teenagers don’t catch themselves and repent, all you
have to do is show them God’s Word and they will see
it for themselves. It doesn’t take long for a kid to recog-
nize the fact that when they are living for God their life
is blessed, and when they aren’t it is miserable.
Alternatives to Worldly Partying
Most kids love to party. They love to get together with

a bunch of friends and not have any plan. They just
want to see what happens—which means a lot of bad
things can happen. God knew this when He told us
that without a vision—or a plan—we perish. We don’t
123
want our kids going to an unsupervised party for that

very reason.
One of the greatest things Christian parents and

churches can do is network together to provide great
parties for their kids. They need safe places to go
where there are fun things to do. They are looking for
places where they can invite unsaved friends from
school or their neighborhood, knowing that it will be
a great time and not just preaching. They also need
times on Friday and Saturday nights where they can
meet other Christian kids and have fun doing things
that will not harm them in spirit, soul, or body.
There are so many things that parents can do. We’ve

had dance competitions in our backyard. We’ve had
movie nights. At one of our son’s birthday parties, he
decided to have a poetry competition. His friends
came with a poem or song they had written. It was
hilarious, and all the kids had a great time. Just provid-
ing a place for them to gather and being there in the
background gives them the freedom to talk. You’re
there, but you’re not keeping them from having fun.
Alternatives to Worldly Entertainment
Many parents back off when it comes to today’s music

because they don’t know anything about it. They say,
“I don’t know what’s going on, and it changes all the
time.” Then there are Christians who got saved and
decided never to go to movies again. Now they have
124
teenagers, and they don’t have a clue about what’s

going on in the movie industry.
Because these parents don’t know anything about

worldly entertainment, they just say no to everything.
They hear that rap songs are nasty, so they declare that
there will be no secular music. Then they hear how
corrupt and perverse Hollywood
is, so they forbid their kids
from going to the movies with
their friends. But there has to
be a proper balance. >>
Unfortunately, one of the
reasons that a lot of parents You can have
don’t want to deal with the a good dialogue
entertainment issue is that they
don’t want to put in the work with your kids
to find out what’s going on.
about suitable
They won’t make the effort to
sit down and listen to the CDs, entertainment and
find out what the lyrics are, and
research what kind of person
come to an
the artist is. They don’t read understanding
movie reviews to find out what
the movies are presenting and about what is
how they are presenting it. acceptable to God
You don’t have to go buy the and what is not
CD or pay to see the movie.
acceptable to Him.
You can get on the Internet
and find out anything you
want to know. If you don’t
125
have a computer, go to any bookstore or library and

do the research. You can find the lyrics to any song
that you want and even listen to it online. You can
read reviews of movies and see the previews and trail-
ers online even before they come out. The ratings tell
you if there is violence, bad language, sexual content,
and other things.
When your kids want to get a certain CD or see a

certain movie, ask them if they know about it. Tell
them you want to look it up and do some research
beforehand, and then share your findings with them.
You can have a good dialogue with your kids about
suitable entertainment and come to an understanding
about what is acceptable to God and what is not
acceptable to Him.
I’ve had parents tell me, “I’ll only let my kid watch
Christian movies, listen to Christian music, and read
Christian magazines and books because that’s all Jesus
would do.” I just remind them that there was no
contemporary Christian music, books, movies, and
videos in Jesus’ time. And Jesus was known to visit
and eat with “publicans and sinners.” He didn’t do this
every day and He never compromised who He was,
but He was not totally insulated from the secular
culture of His day.
The key to this is wisdom and knowledge. First, you

find out the content of the book or movie or CD. Then
you make a decision on whether it is appropriate for
your kids. For example, The Passion of the Christ,
produced and directed by Mel Gibson, was a great film
126
about Jesus. However, it might be too graphic for your

kids if they are only five or six years old. On the other
hand, there might be a good secular movie that has a
great life-message, which would be extremely appro-
priate for an older teenager.
The point is, we don’t throw caution to the wind and

let our kids be exposed to anything or take their word
for it when they say that something is okay. But we
don’t just say no to everything and just sit on our
hands either. We educate ourselves about the enter-
tainment industry and then take the time to educate
our kids. In the end, we realize that entertainment is
just another opportunity for us to share God’s Word
with our kids in bite-size pieces like we talked about
in the last chapter.
I’ve observed those Christian young people whose

parents separate them from the world almost
completely. Their lives are centered totally around
their church and their church school. They have no
activities other than those related to the Christian
community. Some even go to a Christian college. It’s
like they are in a vacuum where they never even smell
the world. They hardly know the world exists out
there. They’ve never heard or seen anything worldly.
They only talk to an unbeliever when they go to the
store to buy something.
Some of these kids go to a college or university that

isn’t Christian or start working in a secular company
when they are eighteen to twenty-one years old and
the world just overwhelms them. They have no idea
127
>>
One of the best things you can

do for your kids is put them to
work as soon as they are old
enough. It makes them feel
important, builds self-esteem
and confidence, and teaches
them responsibility and
teamwork. It lets them know
that they are not on this earth
alone, and everyone has to do
their part.
128
how to deal with it, and depending on their personal-

ity, they either get sucked right into the world in an
effort to fit in or they become so rigid that no one can
get along with them. Neither one of these scenarios is
a good one!
Part of training up our kids is allowing them to learn

how to live in the real world as they are ready so they
can make right choices while we are still there to help
guide them. They need to learn how to discern what
is godly, what I call “value neutral” (neither good or
bad—like which flavor of ice cream they choose), and
what is evil. They need to learn how to make good
decisions in difficult situations. How can they learn to
choose God’s way over the world’s way if we
completely insulate them from any contact with the
culture they are living in?
God’s plan is for your kids to interact with their world

wisely while they are under your care and instruction.
And if they do make an occasional mistake, you are
there to love them, give them God’s Word, and point
out that they have just proved His Word to be true!
There are some kids who choose to learn that the hard
way. They want to touch the hot stove to make certain
it really will burn them. It’s better for them to learn that
in your home, before they are out on their own. Then,
by the time they are adults, they will know from
personal experience that it is better to live by God’s
principles than by the ways of the world.
129
Put Them To Work
One of the greatest alternatives to just saying no is

giving your kids a job to do, finding them a job outside
your home, or making them get a part-time job. Many
teenagers believe that work is evil, but Adam and Eve
worked before sin, death, and misery came into the
picture. So we know that work is not a dirty, four-letter
word. God gave us work to give us pleasure and satis-
faction in our lives.
The importance of work is something every kid needs

to know if they are going to succeed in life and enjoy
it, but especially Christian kids. Christian teenagers
ought to be excited about what God has called them
to do, knowing that everything He has them accom-
plish is for a higher good and purpose. Parents should
teach them from an early age that even the trivial tasks
and unpleasant jobs they do as kids are part of God’s
plan for their lives. Nothing they do is insignificant.
One of the best things you can do for your kids is put
them to work as soon as they are old enough. It makes
them feel important, builds self-esteem and confi-
dence, and teaches them responsibility and teamwork.
It lets them know that they are not on this earth alone,
and everyone has to do their part.
There’s something important you need to know about

putting teenagers to work, however. Most of them
despise hard work! You may think that if you’ve got a
good kid, they’re just going to love work, that they
will look forward to getting up early in the morning
130
and doing some manual labor. But that is rarely the

case, and sometimes parents get discouraged because
their kids don’t like to do chores or go to their part-
time jobs.
I want you to know that it is very natural for

teenagers—even those who are good kids and love
God—to not enjoy flipping hamburgers or cleaning
the garage. But then, we all have to overcome this,
don’t we?
Do not love sleep lest ye come to poverty, open

your eyes and you will be satisfied with bread.
Proverbs 20:13
God knew that all human beings had a problem with

work, and that is why the Bible, and particularly the
book of Proverbs, is filled with admonitions to work
hard. We’re instructed to avoid laziness, slothfulness,
oversleeping, and procrastination because He knows
that we have trouble in this area.
If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we

hear that there are some who walk among you in a
disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busy-
bodies. Now those who are such we command and
exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work
in quietness and eat their own bread.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-12
131
Notice that the Bible tells us that when we don’t work,

we shouldn’t eat! Parents need to teach their kids that
without sowing they will not reap, and many of their
opportunities in life happen because they get up and
get busy. Every now and then God will bless them
with something right out of the blue, but in most cases
they will have to work for their reward.
These verses also say that when we don’t work, we

become disorderly and begin to stick our noses into
everyone else’s business. In other words, we stop
taking responsibility for our own lives and start point-
ing our finger at everyone else. Bad attitudes emerge
more easily when we are not doing something we
should be doing. When you put your kids to work,
you are not only teaching them many valuable lessons
in life, you are also keeping them out of trouble!
Let me put your heart at ease that just because a kid

appears to be lazy or doesn’t like to work, it doesn’t
mean that they are not going to turn out right! Every
human being has to come to grips with work, and
some people never do. But believers have an under-
standing of work that the world doesn’t, and this is
what you need to teach your kids.
Work is a form of worshipping God. Your kids are

not just cleaning the gutters or weeding the garden;
they are being good stewards of all God has given,
honoring their mother and father by obeying them,
and learning patience, perseverance, and endurance.
If they are doing the job with others, they are learn-
ing how to bear one another’s burdens and prefer
132
>>
Every kid wants a mission

impossible! They long for an epic
battle, to be a hero in the fight of
good versus evil, to see God make
a way where there is no way—and
use them to do it.
133
others before themselves. Work is a great teacher of

God’s Word.
The world looks at work as a curse, but God gave

work as a blessing. We need to start teaching our kids
this from the time they are little, and when they are
teenagers their work can be even more significant.
They might find a part-time job in a business they will
run someday!
Here are some principles to help you in putting your

teenagers to work:
1. Don’t overdo it. Make sure they are not working

too hard or too much. They are still kids!
2. Show them how to do it right. If they are

working for you, you need to give clear
instructions and train them before you turn the
job over to them. If you fail to do this, you will
provoke them to anger and frustrate them.
3. Inspect their work. If they are doing a job for

you, make sure you check it. This shows them
that their work is important to you and gives
you the opportunity to fine-tune your instruc-
tions and training. If they don’t work for you,
have a chat with their boss now and then to
see how they’re doing. Remember that you will
answer to God for their training, not their boss.
4. Praise them and thank them along the way.

Nothing keeps a worker more inspired and
134
motivated than praise and thanks. You don’t

want them to feel like you’re taking advantage
of them or just using them. You want them to
know that you value them and their good work.
5. Reward them. If they do an excellent job, give

them something extra than what was promised.
Even if they are getting a paycheck from
someone else, it means a lot to them when you
find some way to show them how proud you
are of their achievements.
One last thing about work. Working with your

teenagers is a great experience for you and for them.
When I work with my boys out in the yard on a
Saturday and we’re pulling weeds or mowing grass,
we may not say a whole lot, but we’re accomplishing
something together. We share the satisfaction of a job
well done at the end of the day. And, of course, they
always enjoy it and it’s fun for me to give them all
some cash! In the end, work is not so bad and they
begin to understand the pleasure God gives in it.
Mission Impossible
I love the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and

Abednego. They were Jewish kids who were taken
captive and found themselves in the middle of
worldly Babylon—but they had values. They were
living for God and knew what they believed. They
had been taught how to pray and to trust God. They
135
were also very bright and good workers, so the king

used them to serve him.
Everything was going along real well until the king

built a statue of himself and commanded his subjects
to worship him while listening to some nice, worldly
music. Although the boys were young, they had been
trained in the ways of the Lord. They knew that their
lives would lose God’s blessing if they worshipped
anyone other than Him. They said, “We’re not going
to bow.”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in the world

but not of the world. They illustrated God’s plan for our
young people. First, He wants to save them and get
them out of the world. Then He wants them to be disci-
pled and trained by us to get the world out of them.
Finally, He wants to put them into the world where
they can have influence and make a difference in
people’s lives, to impact their culture for Jesus Christ.
Every kid wants a mission impossible! They long for an

epic battle, to be a hero in the fight of good versus
evil, to see God make a way where there is no way—
and use them to do it. So don’t just say no to your kids.
Educate them and train them so they can see that
serving Jesus Christ is the greatest adventure—and
fun—on earth.
136
6 Reasons To Teach Your Teen To
Say No to Premarital Sex1
1. They will keep the door closed on the

sin of sexual immorality and its
destructive nature.
2. The thought of raising a baby while

they’re a teenager will never have to
enter their mind [or yours!].
3. They will never have a doctor tell

them that they’ve contracted a sexu-
ally transmitted disease—or worse,
that they have HIV or AIDS.
4. Friends and classmates will never see

compromise in their life, which would
cause them to talk behind their back
and lose respect for who they are.
5. God will be able to trust them with

His very best as they give Him their
very best.
6. They will never have to deal with
“ghosts of relationships past” in their
marriage relationship.
>>
T hank God I had two

parents who loved me enough to
stay on my case.
Shaquille O’Neal
Eight
ÒDonÕt let my friends
be the first to tell
me about sex.Ó
B elieve it or not, your kids want you to

have the sex talk with them. Not only that, they want
you to do it early enough so that when their friends
start talking about it, they will know what they’re
talking about—and maybe know more than their
friends know. It’s embarrassing for them to discover
this whole issue of sexuality from their friends, to not
know about it when their friends do.
My own experience was something like that, and I’ll

never forget how embarrassed I was that my friends
knew about sex and I didn’t. In those days and in my
family you just didn’t talk about such things. I will also
never forget when my dad finally decided he needed
to tell me about it—I was sixteen.
141
He said, “Blaine, I just want you to know, if you’re

ever with a girl, don’t do it. But if you do do it, use
protection.”
That was it! That was my parental instruction on sex

and purity. He didn’t know any better, and I didn’t
either. No one in my family was saved yet, and that
was world’s idea of the “sex talk.” Nevertheless, we
both knew something was wrong. After my family and
I were saved, we learned God’s way of going about
educating kids about sex.
People perish without the

knowledge of God. If we don’t
want our kids to fall into sexual
sin, we need to teach them
>> biblical purity and values when
it comes to relationships with
the opposite sex. Then they
The only hope kids won’t be embarrassed with
their friends when the subject
have is their parents
comes up, and they will make
or an adult who will the right decisions.
take the time to tell
them God’s truth The Least Influence
and make them According to the latest statistics,
accountable for it. 29 percent of all teenagers find
out about sex from their
friends, 16 percent learn about
it from other places such as in
their school’s sex education
142
“Don’t let my friends be the first to tell me about sex.”
classes or from their coaches and teachers, and 5

percent learn from other siblings and relatives. Most of
what kids learn about sex is outside of their home. In
other words, parents have the least influence on their
kids when it comes to sex.
It is interesting to me that Madonna, who has proba-

bly done more to bring sexual content into media than
any other celebrity in the last twenty years, has
completely changed her position since she became a
mother and a proponent of Kabala, which is a mystic
religion based on Jewish writings. She is now deter-
mined to be the only influence on her children when
it comes to sex. With regard to her six-year-old daugh-
ter, she said, “I want to protect her from sex. Full stop.
She’s not aware of sex nor should she be.”
Madonna saying she will shield her daughter from the

awareness of sex is like Bill Gates saying he will stop
his kids from using a computer! But it’s not easy for
any of us. The world we live in, especially in America,
is saturated with sexual content. Sex is in movies, tele-
vision, commercials, on billboards, in magazines,
music videos, and books—even “classics” in the
public library. You can’t drive through town or skim a
magazine in a waiting room without encountering
sexual images.
The only hope kids have is their parents or an adult

who will take the time to tell them God’s truth and
make them accountable for it. So how does a parent go
from being the least influence to the greatest influence?
You have to take the time and make the effort to
143
educate your kids on what God’s truth is about sex,

then discuss how they apply that truth in their daily
lives, especially in the modern American dating scene.
The Shopping Cart
What they need to know really comes down to two

issues:
1. Who they choose in a romantic relationship.
2. What they do with the person in that relationship.
Concerning the first issue, you should never have a

“shopping cart” mentality when it comes to dating.
Have you ever been really hungry, gone into the
grocery store, grabbed a cart, and just gone down the
aisles picking up anything that looked good? The
trouble with that method is that when you get to the
checkout counter, your bill is usually a lot more than
you had budgeted, you have a lot of stuff that you
don’t need—and most of it is junk food that isn’t good
for you.
That’s the way it is with teenagers. Without a solid and

fulfilling relationship with Jesus and their parents and
family, they get so hungry for a meaningful relation-
ship that they will go to the mall with their friends and
latch onto the first person who looks good to them.
They will take anything that comes along. And the
result is usually heartbreak and disaster.
144
In order to get our kids to the

marriage checkout stand in a
healthy, godly condition, we >>
need to give them some instruc-
tion on how to be discerning
and wise in choosing who they Help your kids
will date and marry. First of all,
you don’t go to the grocery
focus on
store without a list. And the list discovering who
involves healthy, good food
that will bless your body and they are and who
not destroy it. The same is true God called them
in relationships. We study the
Word of God because it to be instead
contains our list—all the quali-
of focusing on
ties and wisdom we need to
discern people and have who they want
healthy relationships.
to be with.
Then you’ve got to pick a good
cart. Have you ever gotten one
of those shopping carts with a bad wheel or two that
squeaks and swerves and you’re constantly wrestling
with it to make it go in the right direction? No matter
how hard you try to keep it on course, it just veers to
the right or left without warning. Because a shopping
cart has four wheels, I want to give you four things to
pass on to your kids to keep their dating cart accurate.
1. Know Jesus.
If you don’t know and love Jesus, having a daily rela-

tionship with Him, the rest of your relationships will
145
suffer. Matthew 6:33 says that if you seek God’s

kingdom first, everything else you need in life will
come to you. So you’ve got to put Jesus before any
other relationship in order for the rest of your rela-
tionships to be on track.
When you put Jesus first and have a good relationship

with Him, it keeps you from becoming desperate.
Christian young people can get so desperate. I hear
them say, “My friends are all dating. I’ve got to find
somebody. I’ve got to be hooked up. I was hooked up
last week, but I’m not hooked up this week. Who do
I hook up with?”
The devil sits on their shoulders and tells them that

there won’t be anyone left for them at the end of the
day. All single men and women will be taken by the
time they are ready to get married! And the only thing
that overcomes these lies is the truth of God’s Word.
Jeremiah 29:11 says that God has a plan and purpose
for their lives that is good, and in Genesis 2:18 God
Himself says that it isn’t good for man to be alone.
That means that He has a mate for them.
Tell your kids to look at those they know who have

recently made it to the checkout stand, young adults
who are a few years older than they are and are
getting married or have gotten married. Point out that
they come in all shapes and sizes and still found their
mate and got married. There’s hope for everyone!
They don’t have to get desperate and load up their cart
with food that is bad for them. They can trust God,
stay pure, and wait for the one He has for them
146
because their relationship with Him is strong. They

know that He orders their steps and will bless them at
the right time and with the right person.
2. Know yourself.
Help your kids focus on discovering who they are and

who God called them to be instead of focusing on
who they want to be with. Instead of thinking about
who they can get or who they can go out with,
encourage them to think about what they should be
doing and where they are going in life.
The most important discovery to make when you’re

young is not who you want but who you are. God
gives the teenage years to develop yourself, to build
godly character, to understand your personhood—who
you are in Christ—and to become a whole, healthy,
purpose-filled individual. Then you will make good
decisions for your life, particularly when it comes to
choosing a mate.
Teenagers also have the drive and time to develop

their gifts, talents, and abilities. This is when you try
out all kinds of things that interest you and God shows
you what you are called to do. Sadly, I have found that
a lot of teenagers are wasting their time. When they
could be developing their gifts and talents—practicing
music or being coached in athletics or learning all
about science—they are obsessed with dating and
having romantic relationships.
147
Kids can get so busy and wrapped up in relationships

that they forget to do what they are supposed to be
doing: finding out who they are and what God has
created them to do. Then it becomes a vicious cycle.
They don’t know who they are, so their romantic rela-
tionships end in pain and heartache. They go from one
relationship to another, and as my wife pointed out
one day, it is like they are practicing marriage and
divorce over and over again. Then we wonder why it
happens to them later on.
It’s important to stress to your kids that their

teenage years have a purpose, and that is to
discover all God has for them. Why? Because only
when they know who they are in Christ Jesus will
they be able to recognize the mate He has for them.
3. Cut out the word “love” in dating.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
This is where the biggest problem in American dating

lies: love is interchangeable with sex. This is the way
it is portrayed in nearly every movie, TV show, music
video, and magazine ad. Love and sex go hand in
hand. “Well, if I love you, then it’s okay to get physi-
cal.” And that’s where physical intimacy begins. They
may start out holding hands, but then it progresses,
one step at a time. Every time they go on a date they
go a little bit further. And they believe it is okay
because they love each other.
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Kids should not be using the word “love” in a roman-

tic way until they’re either ready to give or to receive
an engagement ring from someone they know is
committed to them. This business of saying, “Mom,
I’m in love with Susie,” at age eleven is ridiculous.
That word, in a romantic context, should be saved for
when you are ready to be married. Why? If you think
in terms of love, then you think in terms of all the
things that go with love, including the physical
things. And sex is for marriage only.
Let me tell you some well-known secrets. Boys have

got turbo engines on their shopping carts! They are
pushing as hard as they can to get to the checkout
stand too early and too quickly. You need to talk
about this with your boys and tell them to slow down.
Trust God. Everything’s going to be okay because He
has the best plan.
A fifteen-year-old boy once said to me, “I finally found

out what true love is. The only problem is, the girl that
I’m in love with does not love me. I was wondering if
you could help me out.”
My answer was, “Leave her alone. If she doesn’t want

you, then you don’t want her. If you are meant to be
together, she’ll come around. In the meantime, she’s
not interested, so let it go. Turn the whole thing over
to God and go on with your life. There’s somebody
out there for you. You don’t have to push it. You don’t
have to be in a hurry. First Corinthians 13 says that
love is patient and doesn’t demand its own way!”
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Boys need to know that one of the ways to keep a

dating relationship on the right track is to keep from
saying, “I love you.” Again, that is reserved for when
you present her with an engagement ring.
Girls need to know about the boys’ turbo engine.

After a date or two, if some guy looks deep into your
eyes and says, “Oh baby, I love you,” that doesn’t
mean he loves you. That means he “lusts” you. You
have something he wants, and he’ll tell you whatever
you want to hear so he can get there. And even if he
is sincere, he is taking things too fast and leading
you into dangerous territory. I’m going to say it
again: “I love you” is only appropriate when he pulls
out the engagement ring, and sex is reserved for
after you are married.
When I say you should cut out the word “love,” I’m
speaking strictly of the dating vocabulary. I’m not
talking about Christian love in general. I’m not refer-
ring to, “I love you with the love of the Lord,” which
is the unconditional love from God that we all have for
other people. Kids at Oneighty are always telling each
other and other people in the church that they love
them. But I’m talking about pushing a dating relation-
ship too far too soon by using the word “love” outside
the context of marriage.
4. Don’t be alone together.
Here is a statistic that I’m going to give you from the

Blaine Bartel Research Committee, taken from a
personal study of over twenty years of working with
150
>>
Drawing up a relationship covenant

is a great way to establish
boundaries and safeguard a
dating relationship because kids
have to state what they believe,
what their intentions are, and
bring their parents in to hold
them accountable.
151
teenagers. Are you ready? One hundred percent of

teenage pregnancies and teenage sexual diseases are a
direct result of two teenagers being alone. What does
this tell us? Don’t be alone on a date!
I’m not saying they can never be alone. There are

times when they have to drive somewhere together.
Just don’t go parking. They shouldn’t be at someone’s
home when the parents are gone. They shouldn’t go
into a bedroom by themselves unless they are working
on a project together, the door is open, and the
parents are nearby—listening closely! They have to be
very careful about being alone because that’s when
kissing and hugging leads to other things.
Remind your kids that when they get married they will
be alone all they like, and it will be great. Alone is
good when you’re married. But alone leads to sin
when you are not married. It’s just that simple.
Boundaries Make Dating Safe
A couple at Oneighty told me one day that they had a

relationship covenant while they were dating. They
actually agreed to what the rules and boundaries
would be in the relationship before they had their first
date. I believe this is a great idea. This will definitely
separate the men from the boys because if they can’t
discuss these issues with someone, they probably
shouldn’t be going out with them. In other words, they
should choose someone who has the same faith and
values that they have.
152
This couple wrote down what the “rules of engage-

ment” were in their dating relationship. They consid-
ered a lot of issues. What do we do? What don’t we
do? Let’s be clear on what are values are up front. Let’s
not go through a discovery process, finding out what
we believe is right and wrong as we go along, because
our emotions may weaken us and we might compro-
mise what we believe. They even asked their parents
to help them with it.
I’m going to call them Jimmy and Susie. Here’s a little

bit of what they wrote out.
What Jimmy and Susie can do:
1. We can hang out together, which includes seeing

movies and going to restaurants or concerts.
2. We can ride in the same vehicle together in

order to go someplace.
3. We can hold hands and put arms around

shoulders.
4. We can talk on the telephone.
5. We can pray together.
What Jimmy and Susie cannot do:
1. We cannot hang out together late at night,

which means after ten or eleven o’clock.
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2. We cannot have unnecessary physical contact

like rubbing each other’s back and cuddling. If
it isn’t something we would do with our
brother or sister, we shouldn’t do it.
3. We cannot have prolonged time together. Too

much time together causes the desire for phys-
ical contact to increase.
They included verses of Scripture that would guide

their relationship, and then they both signed it with
their parents witnessing it. This may seen extreme to
you in today’s culture, but the Bible says that we are
not to be conformed to our culture. It is not our stan-
dard. The Word of God is our standard.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you

to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and
holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you
think of what he has done for you, is this too much
to ask?
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world,
but let God transform you into a new person by
changing the way you think. Then you will know
what God wants you to do, and you will know how
good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
Romans 12:2 NLT
Drawing up a relationship covenant is a great way to

establish boundaries and safeguard a dating relation-
ship because kids have to state what they believe,
154
what their intentions are, and bring their parents in to

hold them accountable. Overall, it is a great way to
stay out of trouble.
A Scriptural Boundary
A lot of kids ask me, “How far is too far? What can I
do on a date if I really like someone? Can we hug? Can
we kiss? What are the rules?”
When it comes to this issue, I just have one rule based

upon one verse of Scripture.
Now concerning the things of

which you wrote to me: It is
good for a man not to touch >>
a woman.
1 Corinthians 7:1,2
It has been found
that you can
Now before you accuse me of
being too legalistic and strict, change your
let’s take a look at the word
“touch.” There are different
teenager’s sexual
kinds of touch in the Greek behavior by eating
language. In this verse, the
word “touch” is the Greek word with them on a
haptomai, which means to regular basis.
attach oneself to, and the root
word, hapto, literally means to
set on fire or kindle.1 So the
155
apostle Paul is telling the single man that he should

not touch a woman or fasten his body to hers in a way
that would arouse her sexual desires.
A young man asked me, “Pastor Blaine, whenever I

hold my girlfriend’s hand, man, I’m getting excited.
The passions, the fires, are stirring up. I’m thinking
about the next thing. What do I do?”
I said, “Don’t hold her hand. Tell her what’s going on

and she should understand. Just avoid it.”
He said, “Well, how are people going to know we’re

together. No one will know. We’ve got to let people
know we’re together.”
I said, “Whatever you have to do to stay pure, then do

it. If someone doesn’t get that you’re together, you can
tell them.”
Someone said to me, “Kissing can’t be that bad.”
I said, “Have you ever been sexually aroused by a kiss?”
The Word of God makes it very clear to men and

women of all ages just what the godly boundaries are
for physical contact in dating. If sexual passion
becomes aroused, you have crossed the line and are
headed for trouble—and kissing certainly falls into
that category.
In 1 Corinthians 16:20, Paul exhorts the entire body of

Christ to “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” The
156
very fact that he brings this up tells us that there was

a kind of kiss that did not kindle the fires of passion
in the opposite sex—and that there was a kiss that did.
In many countries and cultures today, people will
greet each other by kissing on the cheek and some-
times on the lips. This is what Paul was referring to as
a “holy” kiss. He was making a distinction between a
holy kiss and a kiss of passion.
Touch is how you go from being okay to entering

dangerous territory sexually, so it is an important
subject to discuss with your teenager. It takes guts to
sit down and have that dialogue with your kid, to say,
“Hey, let’s talk about this. I know it’s embarrassing, but
let’s just get it out on the table, so that I know that you
have a thorough understanding of what you are
dealing with here.”
Tell Them When They Are Young
In order for your kids to know about sex from you

instead of their friends, you have to talk to them as
soon as they are old enough to understand the physi-
ology of it. They will probably be grossed out, but
assure them that it’s okay. They’re supposed to be
grossed out at that age! Let them know that this is a
subject you will be discussing with them as they grow
older and have questions. In other words, your door is
always open. Also, tell them that when they meet their
mate and get married, it will be one of the greatest
blessings of their life. This gives them the facts, let’s
them know their present reaction is normal, and lays
157
the foundation that God created sex to be a great plea-

sure between a husband and wife.
Here’s the point. The world attempts to portray sex in

an immoral way even to our children. They’ve been
out front and unashamed in actually selling this to
our teenagers. On the other hand, many parents and
even Christian parents and the Church have been
relatively silent on this issue. As a result, we’re not
giving our young people a fighting chance to make it
through the battlefield without falling and becoming
a casualty.
We’ve got to arm our kids with

the truth. It is our responsibil-
ity to help them to know what
>> is right and what to do. Kids
are finding out about sex at
younger ages today, so the
To communicate sooner you tell them what you
well, you have to believe, the better equipped
they will be. When my first
have a grasp of the son was five years old, I came
home from work and before I
world your kid is
could say hello he asked,
facing. It is entirely “Daddy, what’s sex?”
different from the I thought, Man, what is going

world you faced as on? Is my son a pervert? I said,
“Hold on, Son.” I ran to Cathy
a teenager. and said, “Honey, what’s going
on with Jeremy? How come
he’s asking me what sex is?”
158
She said, “Well, I was in the greeting card section of

the store today, and he found this card that had those
three letters on it. He sounded it out just like they’ve
been teaching him in phonics. Once he figured it out,
he said, ‘Sex. Mommy, what’s sex?’ And I told him that
you would tell him when you got home.”
I was then confronted with the reality that it was my

job to explain to a five-year-old what sex was. And
that was not easy. “Well, you know, it’s when Mom
and Dad kind of show love and affection and hugging
and embracing and stuff.”
He said, “Well, that’s cool. Kind of like what you and

I do when you give me a hug when you drop me off
at kindergarten?”
I said, “No, no, no! Not like that.”
Sex Is Not a Four-Letter Word
It doesn’t get easier to talk about sex when they are

older. There is really no easy way to talk to your
teenager about sex. It’s awkward in the beginning,
but these kinds of discussions are what make the
difference in your relationship—and in their ability to
stay strong and pure. It’s what makes you a “hands
on” parent who is involved in your kids’ lives. I
suggest praying in tongues for three hours to get up
your courage!
159
Before you talk to them, know what you’re talking

about. Read books like this one. Be well prepared.
And when you do sit down to talk, make it a conver-
sation instead of a lecture. I’ve done this with my boys
individually and together, and I always open it up to
hear what they are seeing, hearing, and thinking as
well as what I want to get across to them. We always
end up learning from each other.
You could also read a book together. One of the best-

selling books on teenage relationships is called I
Kissed Dating Good-bye, by Joshua Harris. He wrote
the book when he was still a teenager. If you read
through something like that together, discussing a
chapter at a time, you will easily get into all the things
you want to talk about with your kids.
This is going to sound strange, but it has been found

that you can change your teenager’s sexual behavior
by eating with them on a regular basis. It is disturbing
that, according to a YMCA survey, 10 percent of the
parents surveyed reported that they ate just one meal
a week or never ate with their teenagers. They found
that 50 percent of teenagers who do not eat dinner
with their parents have had sex by age fifteen. By
contrast, only 32 percent of teenagers who eat dinner
with their parents regularly have ever had sex.
Seven out of ten young people who regularly eat and

talk with their parents do not have sexual relations
before they get married.2 That says that we need to be
sitting down to dinner with our kids!
160
Know Their World
To communicate well, you have to have a grasp of the

world your kid is facing. It is entirely different from the
world you faced as a teenager. At Oneighty we
subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine to keep up on
what kids are listening to and looking at. We want to
know what they’re involved in and what the enter-
tainment industry is saying to them.
One day I was flipping through one of the recent

issues and saw an ad for an antiperspirant and was
struck by the sexual content. A few pages later there
was a picture of Angelina Jolie, who was talking about
sex in the quotes at the top. When I turned the page I
saw what she was selling—a car. Even advertisements
are selling products with sexual images.
The American Psychological Association estimates that

teenagers are exposed to fourteen thousand sexual
images, references, and innuendoes per year on tele-
vision. A 2001 study of prime time television by the
Kaiser Family Foundation found out that 75 percent of
TV programs today include sexual content of some
kind. It’s almost impossible to find anything on TV that
is not offensive in this area.
Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness,

faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord
out of a pure heart.
2 Timothy 2:22
161
In this verse of Scripture, the apostle Paul tells Timothy

to flee youthful lusts. We don’t know how old Timothy
was, but he was much younger than Paul. He was also
the pastor of the church at Ephesus. Paul had to
command and encourage this young minister of the
gospel to flee the lusts of his youth. If a young man
like Timothy, who loved God with all his heart,
needed that admonition, how much more does every
Christian teenager in America need to hear it?
Paul doesn’t stop there, though. He says, “But pursue

righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call
on the Lord out of a pure heart.” This is so important!
To help our young people escape the trap of youthful
lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace,
they need to be surrounded by those who call on God
with a pure heart.
Your kids can’t do it alone, and they know it. They

need your help and guidance. They need help from
those who understand that they are not just your child
but God’s precious child. And I believe that involves
all of us in the Church. We have a responsibility not
only to train our own kids, but to be a good influence
and example to all young people.
162
3 Ways To Encourage Your Teen
To Win Your Trust3
1. Tell your kids that obeying you imme-

diately, whether they feel like it or
not, makes you trust them.
2. Tell your kids that when they honor

you when you speak to them, it
makes you trust them.
3. Tell your kids that when they are

truthful, even when it gets them in
trouble, it makes you trust them.
>>
T he best way to keep

children at home is to make
the home atmosphere
pleasant, and to take the air
out of the tires.
Dorothy Parker
Nine
ÒMy parents donÕt
trust me.Ó
T his is something your teenagers tell me a

lot, especially when it comes to sex and dating issues.
A fourteen-year-old girl wrote to me, “I have a
boyfriend that I’ve been dating for three months. We
love each other very much, and my parents don’t trust
me, and I want them to trust me so much. I have very
big morals, and I won’t have sex until I’m married.
What can I say or do to get their trust?”
How many times have you heard, “You don’t trust

me”? It’s probably not that this fourteen-year-old girl’s
parents don’t trust her as much as they don’t trust
everything and everybody else: the dating process, the
world in which she dates young men, and especially
the teenage boys she goes out with!
I believe the American dating process is flawed. The way

it is now is a set-up for moral failure and a dry run for
marriage and divorce. I’m not condemning those who
167
do believe in the dating process,

but I want to throw out some
>> ideas for your consideration.
Right now the dating process in

How can a parent America works like this. Two
trust their kid? young people see each other.
They’re physically attracted to
There has got to be each other. They like each
other. Many times, especially
clear and frequent
when they’re younger, their
communication initial contact will be to send
messengers to each other.
between you. These messengers are young
You can’t just people, usually, who don’t
have dates themselves, but they
“lay down the law” can be a part of the process in
and let them go helping to hook up others.
out the door, The messenger will say, “Hey,

Jerry, did you know that Sally
expecting them likes you?”
to do what you’ve
“Oh, really? Well, I didn’t know
told them to do. that. But I’m happy to know
that because I like her.”
Now Jerry is bold enough to go up to Sally and say,

“Hey, would you go out with me?” Or, today Sally
might ask Jerry out! And the process begins.
They go out and they like each other even more. Then
the relationship goes a step further. They commit to
168
“My parents don’t trust me.”
one another. “I’m committed to you. Are you commit-

ted to me?” When commitment is established, that’s
when the word “love” gets thrown around. And we
have already discussed the problem with that. Today
most teenagers believe that love and sex go together,
so their physical intimacy will usually progress until
they have sex.
My question is, “How can young Christians participate

in this dating process and remain pure?” Consider the
fourteen-year-old girl who wrote me about her
parents not trusting her. Most likely she has years of
dating ahead of her before she marries. If she’s so
involved with the issue of sex at fourteen, and she
believes she is in love now, how will she remain pure
until she marries?
Let me put it another way. If she will not marry until

she’s twenty, then she has six years of dating and
trying to remain pure. Six years translates into 312
weekends, which is about 630 weekend nights and
over 5,600 hours of being alone. That’s a tough chal-
lenge for anyone, but especially a young person
whose hormones are raging.
In light of all of this—the flaws in the process of dating

and the youthful lusts that are present—how can a
parent trust their kid? First of all, there has got to be
clear and frequent communication between you. You
can’t just “lay down the law” and let them go out the
door, expecting them to do what you’ve told them to
do. You have to have an understanding between you
that supports trust.
169
This brings us back to the sex talk. There is a time

when kids are very young to have the sex talk with
them. But as they grow up, you have little discussions
as the opportunity presents itself. We saw in the last
chapter that kids who have dinner with their parents
regularly are less likely to be sexually active. This is
not just because they’re eating together, but because
they are talking to one another about the issues of
their lives. They are reaching an understanding of one
another. Kids know what their parents expect and
why, and they agree to follow the rules.
Then parents assure their kids that they will hold

them accountable for the rules they have set for
them and help them keep those rules. Their kids
know that their parents have the right to investigate
them, to make certain that they are keeping their end
of the bargain.
What I’m talking about here is not easy to do. Even if

your teenagers agree to the rules, situations will arise
when they will try to bend the rules or break them
altogether. They may accuse you of all kinds of things
before all is said and done—including not trusting
them. But you just go back to the rules, point out the
biblical standards the rules are based upon, and stick
with God’s Word. Remind them that trust is earned.
To Be or Not To Be Hands-On
A lot of parents say, “I want to be a cool parent.

Man, I’m going to just let my kids grow up naturally.
170
I’m going to be hands-off. I’m going to let them do

what they want, and they will like me a whole lot
more.” A study called the White House Conference
found that not to be true. They discovered that most
teens don’t want to establish their own rules and
expectations. They want their parents to be “hands-
on” parents.
They found that 47 percent of teenagers living in a

hands-on household had an excellent relationship
with their fathers and 57 percent had an excellent rela-
tionship with their mothers. On the other hand, only
13 percent of teenagers with hands-off parents
reported an excellent relationship with their fathers,
and only 24 percent reported an excellent relationship
with their mothers.
The more hands-on you are, the better your kids like
it and the better your relationship will be. It makes
sense that the more involved you are, the more you
to talk to them, interact with them, and have fun
with them. It’s from spending time with someone
and taking an interest in their life that you develop
the inside jokes and close bonds in a relationship.
Your kid is no exception, and this can develop
mutual trust.
I like to think of it this way. When you are involved in

your kid’s life, you are honoring them. You are
showing them that they are important and precious to
you. Honor is a big deal to teenagers.
171
>>
It is harder to forgive ourselves

than to forgive others, maybe
because we get proud and think
we are beyond sinning. Then
when we do sin, we can’t forgive
ourselves. We have to help our
teenagers understand that it’s
okay for them to forgive
themselves.
172
Here are five ways to show H-O-N-O-R to your teenager:
H—How can I help you? Or, Can you help me with

something?
O—Of all the kids I know, you’re special.
N—Never hesitate to come to me. I’m here for you.
O—Okay, tell me what you think, then I’ll tell you

what I think.
R—Respect is earned and you can be rich. Show

respect and you will be given respect.
Honor is shown by simply giving attention to a person,

and teenagers crave attention! If you are having a hard
time trusting your kid, consider how much attention
you have been giving them. Have you honored your
teenager lately by seeking their help, asking their
opinion about a controversial issue, or simply spend-
ing time with them?
When you honor your young person, they will honor

you and trust you; and they will have a great desire to
please you and earn your trust.
Trusting After a Fall
A sixteen-year-old girl e-mailed me, “I’ve made some

very wrong decisions with my boyfriend. I just wish I’d
never done what I did because I can’t ever look at
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myself the way I was able to before. I wish I could go

back in time, but I can’t. What can I do?”
I believe the reason this girl was e-mailing me instead

of talking to her parents was because she was afraid
to go to her parents. Or maybe her parents aren’t
Christians. Either way, she needed help and didn’t feel
like she could go to them.
Most Christian kids who mess up, and kids who have
been sexually active but then come to Oneighty and
get saved, have a hard time getting over their past.
They wish they could go back and erase it and do
things differently. That’s the first thing you have to
understand when your teenager falls sexually. If you
stand there and point your finger and condemn them,
you will probably either crush their spirit or drive them
right back into rebellion. Believe me, if they’ve grown
up in the Word of God, they know they have sinned
and are in big trouble.
After you assure them that God still loves them, you
both need to go through the steps of forgiveness.
Your teenager must ask God to forgive them for their
sin and receive His forgiveness. Remind them that
the Bible says in 1 John 1:9 that Jesus is faithful not
only to forgive them, but to cleanse them from all
unrighteousness. He will clean them up and make
them pure again.
Then they need to forgive themselves. This is one of

the hardest things for any individual. For some reason,
the blood of Jesus seems good enough to cleanse
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everyone else but not us. It is harder to forgive

ourselves than to forgive others, maybe because we
get proud and think we are beyond sinning. Then
when we do sin, we can’t forgive ourselves.
We have to help our teenagers

understand that it’s okay for
them to forgive themselves. In >>
fact, they will only continue in
pride by not forgiving them-
selves because they are setting There are a lot of
themselves above God. He has
forgiven them, so they should concepts that are
come into agreement with Him related to trust:
and His Word and forgive
themselves too. In forgiving responsibility,
themselves, they are actively integrity, and a
expressing their faith in a
loving, heavenly Father by standard of
humbly doing what He has
excellence. You
already done.
can’t expect your
Finally, you need to forgive
them and assure them of your teenager to earn
love. This is often extremely your trust if you
difficult for a Christian parent.
You are disappointed and heart- never give them
broken. Maybe you were guidelines and
careful to train your kid and
they still messed up. Maybe you opportunities to
didn’t train them and now you
earn it.
have just as many regrets about
the past as your kid does. Either
175
way, what you thought would never happen has

happened. You must forgive them, forgive yourself,
and allow God to heal you as a family. Only He can
make everything good and pure again.
When everyone has been reconciled to God and to

each other, then you need to take care of the practical
matters. Repentance means to decide to change and
think differently.1 When you think differently, you will
act differently. You basically stop doing the wrong
thing and start doing the right thing. So the first thing
your young person must do is immediately terminate
the relationship that brought them down. Cold turkey.
They have to understand that they will never recover
their passion for purity if they are continually fighting
a passion for the person that caused them to sin. No
matter how hard or painful, it must be done.
Second, from that moment on, your kid must be

accountable to you or someone who also has a
passion for purity. In the case of this young girl who
e-mailed me, if she could not be accountable to her
parents, she could turn to a spiritual counselor at
church or a youth leader. But it must be someone who
is stronger and more mature in the Lord. It also should
be someone of the same sex.
How To Earn Trust
There are a lot of concepts that are related to trust:

responsibility, integrity, and a standard of excellence.
You can’t expect your teenager to earn your trust if
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you never give them guidelines and opportunities to

earn it. Here are some guidelines I give my kids when
they want to earn someone’s trust.
1. Do your job better than expected.
2. Give attention to the smallest detail.
3. Always finish what you start.
4. Focus on the task that will produce the result;

don’t get so consumed with the result that you
neglect doing the task in an excellent manner.
5. Pay the price others may not pay. Be extraor-

dinary.
Teach your teenager to do things with excellence

because excellence builds trust. When they rake the
leaves, they don’t put the trash bags all over the yard;
they put them neatly on the curb for the trash men to
pick up. When they do the dishes after a meal, they
not only wash and dry them, but they put them away
where they belong. They wipe the countertops and
sweep the floor so that the kitchen looks fresh and
clean and ready to use again.
All these things are the little details of life that add up to
being trusted. And this goes for dating and relationships
as well. When they say they will be home at ten that
night, they don’t come in at five minutes after ten. They
are home at ten or before ten. When they are interested
in someone of the opposite sex, they tell you about
177
them, have you meet them, and

keep you “in the loop” as the
relationship progresses. You get
>> to know all their friends as they
get to know them.
When we require You need to tell your kids that
our kids to live by earning trust is not always easy.
I like to use the word
God’s Word, we are “mediocre” to illustrate this
also teaching them point. Mediocre is formed from
two Latin words: medius and
to trust Him. ocris. Medius means middle or
halfway, and ocris means a
peak; sharp.2 You could say
that mediocre means, “halfway
up a stony mountain.” This implies that the road to the
top is rough and you have given up halfway up. The
dictionary says, “neither very good nor very bad; ordi-
nary; average; not good enough; inferior.”3
Sometimes earning someone’s trust presents one of the

biggest challenges. It’s like climbing a stony mountain.
You’ve gotten some nicks and some cuts and you’re
hurting and you want to quit. You have to scale some
jagged rocks and push through some crevasses to
keep going. Mediocrity stops halfway up and says,
“You know, I’m too tired. They’ll just have to be satis-
fied with what I’ve done so far. Someone else can
finish, or I’ll do it another time.” But excellence pushes
on until the summit is reached. Excellence pays the
price to finish the job and do it well, and the reward
of excellence is trust.
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Trust Is All About God
You can’t hold your young person accountable and

not give them the Word because the Word of God
enables them to be trustworthy. Second Peter 1: 8 says
that if the Word of God is in them and they are living
by it (you are holding them accountable for it), they
will succeed in life. By encouraging them in the Word
and nurturing their relationship with the Lord, you can
require them to be trustworthy because through Him
they have the ability to be trustworthy.
Furthermore, there is only one way one human being

can trust another human being, and that is by trusting
God. It was only after her “close encounter” with God
that Sarah was able to call Abraham “lord.” (See
Genesis 18:1-15 and 1 Peter 3:4-6.) She trusted
Abraham by trusting the God of Abraham. We can only
trust our kids by trusting their God and our God. We
must remind ourselves that He has our kids’ futures
and our future securely in His hands.
When we require our kids to live by God’s Word, we

are also teaching them to trust Him. Without faith in
God, it is impossible to please Him. (See Hebrews
11:6.) So our kids know that only through His strength
and wisdom can they earn anyone’s trust and favor.
Without God, they can do nothing; but through Him
all things are possible. (See Matthew 19:26.)
The only way a young person can go out and face the
world with confidence is if they have earned trust
during their growing up years. This means they have
179
had to rely on God’s strength to be trustworthy. As you

train your teenager to earn your trust by relying on
God’s strength, you are building their own confidence
in God to enable them to be trustworthy and respon-
sible in the future.
If kids think they can’t be trusted, they will never be

trustworthy. But if they have proven time and time
again that they can be trusted, they will have inner
peace that with God’s help they can meet whatever
challenges and responsibilities life throws at them after
they leave home.
As you require trustworthiness from them and put the

Word in them, they come to understand that they can
only trust themselves or anyone else to the degree
that they trust God. He is the One who holds the keys
to their success. He gave them their gifts. He has the
plan for their lives. He leads them and guides them.
He gives them the knowledge and wisdom they need
for daily situations. And only He can give them the
inner fortitude to keep them worthy of trust long after
they have left your home and established their own.
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5 Things You Must Teach Your Teen4
1. How to live within their means.

Challenge your teenager to delay
instant gratification for true, long-term
financial success.
2. How to be happy with who they are.

Don’t allow your teenager to fall into
the empty and vain comparison trap.
Their happiness should be based on
who they are in Christ and what He
has created them to be and do.
3. How to build a successful marriage.

Have your teenager read books about
building a marriage that will stand
through the storms of life. Share the
experiences you have had that can
assist them.
4. How to be a good parent. Most of us

learn our parenting skills from how
our parents raised us. As you grow as
a parent, share your experiences and
wisdom with your teenager.
5. The meaning of life. The meaning of
life can only be found in a personal
relationship with our Creator. Teach
your child from birth that the closer
they are to Him, the closer they will
be to fulfilling their life’s purpose.
>>
W hen I was a boy of

fourteen, my father was so
ignorant, I could hardly stand to
have the old man around. But
when I got to be twenty-one, I
was astonished at how much he
had learned in only seven years.
Mark Twain
Ten
ÒBe my friendÑ
but donÕt tell anybody.Ó
I t’s been my experience that if a troubled

kid finds just one adult who will be their friend—and
that means holding them to biblical standards and
integrity—they can be turned around. For example, a
young man I will call Kris came to our youth group,
and he was having severe problems. He had threat-
ened to kill other kids in his school and had created a
list of those he was planning to murder, so he was
expelled. Now he was coming to Oneighty on one of
our buses on a regular basis.
I learned that his mother had given up on him. She

was letting him do anything he wanted to do. His
father was out of the picture altogether. One day one
of my leaders came to me and said, “Blaine, we’re
concerned about this kid. He’s violent and lashes out.
What do you suggest we do?”
185
I said, “Bring him to my office next week.” The follow-

ing week I sat down with Kris before he came to our
next Wednesday night service. I looked him straight in
the eye and said, “Now, Kris, you are gonna smarten
up. You’re going to be a leader because you’re not
going to live this way anymore. You’re going to quit
lashing out and being a violent person, and you’re
going to be what God has called you to be.”
He didn’t say anything but I had his attention, so I

continued. “It’s time for you to
grow up as a young man. I
know you’ve had problems in
>> your home, and I know that
kids have made fun of you at
school. But with Jesus in your
Most kids want life you’re bigger than your
problems at home or at school.
friendship with their
You’ve been to Oneighty
parents to be their enough to know what we
expect from you. From now on
best kept secret! As we are going to help you meet
a result, they don’t those expectations, and you are
going to change the way you
make it a habit to think, the way you behave, and
ask you into their the way you live.”
world. They want No adult had ever leveled with

him, challenged him, and
you to knock at
given him direction. His face
their door. brightened, and I grabbed him
by the hand to pray with him.
It wasn’t long before he was
186
“Be my friend—but don’t tell anybody.”
back in school and doing well. He’s come to Oneighty

every week since and has allowed Jesus to change his
life. And all it took was a leader who took the time to
sit down with him and say, “Hey, let’s correct this
behavior problem. Let’s deal with this attitude that
you’ve had.”
If I could have that kind of impact with Kris, how

much more can a parent have with their own kids? The
kids I deal with love it when their parents treat them
with respect and hold them to a scriptural standard of
thinking and behavior. Why? Because they know they
are loved. Then they become your best friends as they
grow older.
Keep Knocking on Their Door
As kids grow older they want to grow closer to their

parents, but they don’t often act like it. Just like the
title of this chapter says, most kids want friendship
with their parents to be their best kept secret! As a
result, they don’t make it a habit to ask you into their
world. They want you to knock at their door.
Sometimes parents have the idea that if their kid is a

really good kid, they’re going to invite them to hang
out with them, go to the movies with them, and come
back to their bedroom to just talk for a while. But kids
aren’t like that. Inviting their parents to have fellow-
ship with them does not come natural for kids.
Generally they will not invite you into their world or
seek you out, so you must ask to come in.
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Proverbs 19:17 says, “A man who has friends must

himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks
closer than a brother.” The Word of God tells us that
to make friends, we must be friendly and reach out.
This is critical to becoming a friend to a young person.
They rarely just come to you, sit down, and open up
their hearts, especially when they are dealing with
something that is highly sensitive to them.
One of the ways you can get your teenager to open up

is to ask questions and wait for answers. A lot of
parents make the mistake of answering their own
question. They don’t give their son or daughter a
chance to respond. Let them come out of their shell
and talk to you. Sometimes you have to wait awhile to
get them to give you more than a one-word grunt, but
it is well worth the wait.
Another great way to get into your teenager’s world is

to do something that they like to do. Shoot baskets or
play catch in the backyard. Go to the mall and do
some shopping. Have lunch or dinner together. Take
them to a concert or a movie, or go to the music store
and listen to each other’s favorite music.
What does it mean to keep knocking on their door? It

means that you are making an effort to show them
how important they are to you, that you not only love
them because they are your kid but because you think
they are a special person who is fun to be with and
worth knowing. When you show that you care for
them and like them that much, they will always
consider you one of their best friends.
188
Let me demonstrate what I’m saying here. See if you

can answer the following questions:
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world

this past year.
2. Name the last five

Heisman trophy winners.

winners of the Miss >>
America contest.
4. Name the last five people The people who

who won the Nobel and
Pulitzer prizes. make a difference in
your life are not
academy award winners the ones with the
for best actor and best
highest credentials,
actress.
the most money,
How did you do? Not so good?
The point is, few people or the greatest
remember the headliners of rewards. They
yesterday. These are the best in
their fields and yet we can’t are the people
think of their names. Awards
who simply care
tarnish, achievements are
forgotten, and accolades and about you.
certificates are buried with their
owners when there is no real
personal benefit.
189
Now here’s another quiz.
1. List five teachers who helped you through school.
2. Name five friends who helped you through

difficult times.
3. Name five people who have taught you some-

thing life-changing.
4. Name five people who have made you feel

appreciated.
5. Name five people who are a lot of fun to be with.
Was this second quiz easier? Why? Because the people

who make a difference in your life are not the ones
with the highest credentials, the most money, or the
greatest rewards. They are the people who simply care
about you. Your best friends are the ones who value
you and care about you—and so are your kids!
What Kind of Friend Are You?
Caring for your kids by seeking them out, asking ques-

tions, and playing and working with them is great, but
there are other aspects of being a good friend. They
also need to know that you will be there for them
through thick and thin. You will pray and seek God
and do whatever needs to be done to see that they get
their answer.
190
A friend loves through all kinds of weather, and

families stick together in all kinds of trouble.
Proverbs 17:17 MESSAGE
A true friend is somebody who is there in the good

times and the bad times, and who doesn’t desert you
in times of trouble. That’s what we need to be to our
kids—especially when they mess up in a big way and
embarrass us! Yes, we straighten them out with disci-
pline and instruction; but we also make it clear that we
are sticking with them no matter what people say.
Friends are also honest with each other, even when

they know it may offend or hurt.
Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy

multiplies kisses.
Proverbs 27:6 NIV
Good friends tell each other the truth in love, and

that’s what parents should do for their kids. As they
grow older they trust you more and more because they
know you’ve always been honest with them. When
they needed correction, you brought correction. When
they stepped out of line or were about to step out of
line, you made them deal with it. You weren’t one of
those “friends” who never confronted them when they
were doing wrong or about to do the wrong thing.
191
Confronting sin, deception, mistakes, and errors in

judgment is all part of being a good parent and a
good friend. Your kids may not appreciate it now, but
as they grow older and see how your guidance and
care have saved them from a lot of misery and ruin,
they will begin to welcome your advice and counsel
as a friend.
How To Be a Friend to Your Kid Now
As you deal with your teenagers, there is always this

line between being the parent and being the friend.
Because they are in that transitional phase between
being a child and being an adult, your role has to be
more flexible. There are times when you must be the
one in authority, the disciplinarian, the teacher, and
the one who holds them accountable. Then there are
other times when you can be their friend and confi-
dant—and they can be yours.
There are some things that I have learned mean a lot

to them. Here are a few of the things you can do to
develop a friendship with your teenager.
1. Do not embarrass them in front of

their friends.
Don’t give them a big kiss in front of their friends as

you drop them off at school. When you pick them
up at a friend’s house, don’t walk in dressed sloppy
and looking weird. Always consider their world and
192
>>
When you invest in your kid, you’re

making a significant contribution to
their life and their future. Some may
accuse you of spoiling your kids,
but remember: things don’t spoil a
kid; giving them everything they
want without requiring responsibility
and character is spoiling a kid.
193
what might embarrass them when you are around

their friends.
2. Step into their world.
Your kids are in school all day, and you’re not there
with them. They are unique individuals and how they
relate in their world is going to be unique. So ask them
about their lives and then listen carefully and prayer-
fully to their answers.
Whether you enjoy the activities they enjoy or not,

show an interest and support them. Go to their base-
ball games and music concerts. If they are in a rock
band and play loud music you hate, go anyway and
wear ear plugs! And surprise them on their own turf
every now and then. Just show up at a football or
cheerleading or band practice. Don’t do this often, but
just randomly enough to make sure they know you’re
interested in everything that concerns them.
3. Help them think about and plan for

their future.
Some kids know what they want to do when they

grow up from a really early age, and that makes it
easier for you because you can help them prepare for
it. But other kids scratch their heads and feel lost. It’s
not clear to them. So you can help them by just bring-
ing it up every now and then. “Hey, have you got any
ideas about what you’d like to do when you get out of
school? Do you sense God leading you into a particu-
lar career or life calling?”
194
If they say no to those questions, you can say, “Well,

let me ask you some questions. You may not know the
answers, but you may not have thought about these
things, and it’ll just get you thinking about them.
Where do you want to live? What are your gifts? What
do you like to do? What do you see yourself doing as
you get older?”
Take time to pray with them and say, “Let’s pray that
God will lead you. The Bible says that your steps are
ordered of the Lord, so He knows where you’re going.
It also says that young people are arrows, and arrows
need direction.” And by the way, arrows don’t get to
where they’re going by themselves. They are aimed
and fired by someone—and that’s you!
4. Help them get stuff they need—

and don’t need.
Kids are always asking for things. Sometimes they

need the stuff and sometimes they don’t. If they really
want it, however, you can use that desire to teach
them responsibility. Maybe they can work in the yard
a few weekends or organize and do a garage sale for
you in exchange for a certain percentage of the profits.
Depending on the cost of what they want, they may
want to get a part-time job. You can also pledge to
contribute an amount to the cost if they maintain a
certain grade average or keep their room clean and
straight. This helps keep their focus on the things that
matter, even if they are doing it to get something that
won’t really matter in the long run.
195
I guarantee that Bill Gates’ parents are real happy that

they got him a computer when he was fifteen years
old. He used it to write some software for his city,
which he sold to the city for $20,000. By the time he
was eighteen, he and his partner were being paid a
salary of $30,000 a year to write software and doing
computer programming part-time, after school. His
parents made an investment in his life that determined
his destiny.
When you invest in your kid, you’re making a signifi-

cant contribution to their life and their future. Some
may accuse you of spoiling your kids, but remember:
things don’t spoil a kid; giving them everything they
want without requiring responsibility and character is
spoiling a kid. I believe parents are called to be their
kids’ provider just as Father God provides for us all—
and sometimes He blesses us with things we didn’t
earn just because He loves us and He knows we can
handle the responsibility.
Galatians 6:10 says, “Therefore, as we have opportu-

nity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are
of the household of faith.” God tells us to be good,
especially to our children. As we provide for them and
bless them, however, we also see that they have a
vision for their life, develop self-discipline, and learn
teamwork in obtaining the things they want.
5. Find time to work and play with your kids.
Friendships are often developed as you work and play

with people, and your kids are no exception. Whether
196
>>
The key to training up a teenager to

love and serve God is to love and
serve God yourself. If you are the
real deal, then your kids will be the
real deal too!
197
you are doing something out in the yard, working on

the car, cleaning the house, or helping a friend move,
working with your kids is a great way to get to know
them and for them to get to know you in a different
setting and situation.
Working with your kids also gives you the opportunity

to teach them servanthood and excellence. This is
when you fine-tune their attitudes about helping
others and doing the best job they can do for those
they are helping.
As for playing with your kids, you should have been

doing that since they were babies! Parents make the
mistake of stopping playing with their kids as they
grow older, but kids love it when you just wrestle with
them, play games with them, or spontaneously take
them to an amusement park to have fun. Again, this is
a time when your kids can see you in a different light,
when you let down your hair a little and just have a
good time with them. And when you’re playing games,
you also teach them how to play fair while developing
their skills in that area.
Be Mysterious
Did you know that Jesus was a mysterious man in

some ways? In fact, seven times in Mark’s Gospel it
records that people were amazed by the things He did
and said. Six times in Matthew’s Gospel people
marveled at Jesus and His works. They were shocked.
They didn’t expect to hear what they were hearing or
198
see what they were seeing. There was this mystery

about Him.
People said things like, “Who is this man Jesus?”

“Where did He come from?” and “How can He do and
say these things?” I’ve noticed that certain men and
women of God, not just full-time ministers but also
business people and athletes and believers in other
professions, can have this “mystery” about them too.
What am I talking about? These are people who live

and move by the Spirit and the Word, doing great
exploits for God. By great exploits, I don’t mean
raising the dead and stopping a hurricane in its tracks.
That’s great but not necessarily an everyday occur-
rence! I’m talking about their vision, wisdom, compas-
sion, and depth of understanding; their ability to meet
every challenge and solve difficult problems; and their
capacity to love unconditionally.
These are people who cause you to wonder, How do

they do that? How did they stay straight during that
trial? Why are they so successful? What gives them the
ability to love someone who doesn’t deserve anyone’s
love? How did they know that?
Kids love to be friends with people who are mysterious

in this way. They are drawn to greatness, and every
Christian parent has greatness in them. You have the
greatness of Jesus Christ inside you, and your teenager
wants to see that greatness, that mystery, in you.
199
There is only one way you can be great, and that is to

spend time with the Great One and then live totally for
Him. When you spend time with God, He is going to
give you secrets. He is going to show you things that
you’ve never seen before. He’s going to change your
heart and mind to see things the way He sees them,
and then you can do things His way.
Most importantly, He’s going to tell you things about

your kids that you couldn’t know any other way. You
talk about having your kid’s attention! Just walk into
their bedroom one day and say, “Son, the Lord just
told me that you weren’t where you said you were last
night. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
WOW! That is being Jesus—the friend who sticks

closer than a brother—to your teenager. When you
walk in the supernatural, amazing, earth-shattering
power and wisdom of God, your kids are going to
listen when you have something to say to them. They
will always wonder what you’re thinking and what
you’re hearing from God! They will know that they can
not pull the wool over your eyes when you are part-
nering with God in the parenting process.
Kids want to be around people who really know God

and live by His Word. They want to be friends with
those who walk the walk and don’t just talk the talk.
So we come back to this again. The key to training up
a teenager to love and serve God is to love and serve
God yourself. If you are the real deal, then your kids
will be the real deal too!
200
Conclusion>>
I continuously remind myself, “Blaine, you’re not the

perfect parent and your kids are not going to be
perfect kids.” And one of the things that encourages
me is looking back on when my parents and I got
saved. I received Christ and was filled with the Holy
Spirit when I was sixteen years old, and my family
would follow in the months and years to come, but we
still made mistakes. We were trying to figure every-
thing out, and we learned together.
I did some really stupid things those first few years of

being born again. I loved Jesus with all my heart, but
I still did some things that I am not proud of. But here
I am today, serving God in the ministry in a great
church. I look at my own kids and think, Man, my
kids are not near as bad as I was, and yet I turned
out all right!
So I encourage you to just keep plugging away at

training and preparing your kids for their adult lives. If
you live by the Word and are sensitive to God’s Spirit,
your decisions will be sound, and they’re going to be
ready when God calls them out of your home and into
adulthood. They are going to be ready to make their
mark for the Lord Jesus Christ and be mightily blessed
of God as they impact their world.
I want to close with a true story that will inspire and

motivate you. The first man was Max Jukes. He lived
201
in the eighteenth century in

New York and did not believe
in Jesus Christ or profess to be
>> a Christian. He refused to take
his children to church, even
when they asked to go. To date
What kind of he has had approximately 560
message will you descendants. Of these descen-
dants, 310 died as paupers, 150
send to the next were criminals, 7 of them
murderers, 100 were known to
generation?
be alcoholics, and more than
half of the women were prosti-
tutes. Most of his descendants
made no beneficial contribution to society and cost the
U.S. government more than $1.25 million in 19th
century dollars.
The second man who lived in the same time period

and in the same state was Jonathan Edwards. He was a
minister who loved the Lord and saw that his children
were in church every Sunday. He has had 1394 descen-
dants. Of these, 295 were college graduates, of whom
13 became university presidents and 65 became profes-
sors. Three were elected as United States senators, 3 as
state governors. One hundred became lawyers with
1 the dean of a law school, 30 judges, 75 officers in the
military, and 100 well-known missionaries, preachers,
and authors. Another 80 held public office including
3 mayors of large cities, 1 comptroller of the U.S.
Treasury, and 1 vice-president. His family never cost
the country one cent, and they have contributed
immeasurably to the quality of life in America.1
202
Conclusion
How is your influence, and what is your legacy? What

kind of legacy will you leave with your children? With
your grandchildren? With your great-grandchildren?
Abraham Lincoln said it like this:
Our children are a timeless message we will send

into a generation we will never see.
What kind of message will you send to the next gener-

ation? One day, your kids will be parents themselves.
It’s my hope and prayer that they will be able to look
back on how well you raised them and take inspiration
and confidence in bringing up their children in the “way
they should go” (Prov. 22:6).
203
Endnotes>>
Preface
1
The Big Black Book for Parents, Blaine Bartel, (Tulsa:
Harrison House Publishers, 2005), p. 14.
Chapter 1
1
Chapter 2
1
“Why Teenagers Act Weird,” Sarah Mahoney,
http://www.prevention.com/article/0,5778,s1-6-79-218-
3699-1,00.html?
2
Chapter 3
1
Right From Wrong, Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler,
(Nashville: W. Publishing Group, 1994), p. 156.
2
Chapter 4
1
Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Third Edition,
Victoria Neufeldt, Editor-in-Chief (New York: Macmillan,
Inc., 1996), p. 18.
2
204
Chapter 5
1
Chapter 6
1
http:/www.barna.org.
2
James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible,
“Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary,” (Nashville, TN:
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), #3045.
3
Ibid., #5467.
4
“Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary,” (Nashville, TN:
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), #6017, 6014.
5
Chapter 7
1
Chapter 8
1
“Greek Dictionary of the New Testament,” (Nashville, TN:
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984), #680, 681.
2
http://www.heritageymca.org/conference_on_teens.htm.
3
The Big Black Book for Parents, Blaine Bartel (Tulsa:
Chapter 9
1
Inc., 1996), p. 1138, s.v “repent.”
205
2
Inc., 1996), p. 842, s.v. “mediocre.”
3
Ibid.
4
The Big Black Book for Parents, Blaine Bartel (Tulsa:
Chapter 10
1
A.E. Winship, Abridgement of Jukes-Edwards, R.L. Myers
& Co., 1900.
206
Prayer of Salvation >>
God loves you—no matter who you are, no matter

what your past. God loves you so much that He gave
His one and only begotten Son for you. The Bible tells
us that “…whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV). Jesus laid down His
life and rose again so that we could spend eternity
with Him in heaven and experience His absolute best
on earth. If you would like to receive Jesus into your
life, say the following prayer out loud and mean it
from your heart.
Heavenly Father, I come to You admitting that I

am a sinner. Right now, I choose to turn away
from sin, and I ask You to cleanse me of all
unrighteousness. I believe that Your Son, Jesus,
died on the cross to take away my sins. I also
believe that He rose again from the dead so that
I might be forgiven of my sins and made right-
eous through faith in Him. I call upon the name
of Jesus Christ to be the Savior and Lord of my
life. Jesus, I choose to follow You and ask that
You fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit. I
declare that right now I am a child of God. I am
free from sin and full of the righteousness of
God. I am saved in Jesus’name.Amen.
If you prayed this prayer to receive Jesus Christ as your

Savior for the first time, please contact us on the Web
at www.harrisonhouse.com to receive a free book.
Or you may write to us at:

Harrison House
P.O. Box 35035
Meet Blaine Bartel >>
Blaine Bartel founded Thrive Communications, an

organization dedicated to serving those who shape the
local church. He is also currently leading a new church
launch in a growing area of north Dallas.
Bartel was the founding youth pastor and one of the

key strategists in the creation of Oneighty, which has
become one of the most emulated youth ministries in
the past decade reaching 2,500–3,000 students weekly
under his leadership. In a tribute to the long term
effects and influence of Blaine’s leadership, hundreds
of young people that grew up under his ministry are
now serving in full time ministry themselves.
A recognized authority on the topics of youth ministry

and successful parenting, Bartel is a best-selling author
with 12 books published in 4 languages, and is the
creator of Thrive—one of the most listened to youth
ministry development systems in the country, selling
more than 100,000 audio tapes and cd’s worldwide. He
is one of the most sought after speakers in his field;
more than one million people from over 40 countries
have attended Blaine Bartel’s live seminars or speak-
ing engagements.
His work has been featured in major media including

“The Washington Post,” cbs’ “The Early Show,” “The
700 Club,” “Seventeen” magazine, as well as newspa-
pers, radio programs, and Internet media worldwide.
Bartel’s commitment to creating an enduring legacy

that will impact the world is surpassed only by his
passion for family as a dedicated father of three chil-
dren and a loving husband to his wife of more than 20
years, Cathy.
To contact Blaine Bartel,
please write to:
Blaine Bartel
Serving America’s Future
P.O. Box 691923
Tulsa, OK 74169
Or visit him on his Web site at:

www.blainebartel.com
You Kids are Worth It >>
Get to the bottom line when it comes to raising

your teens.
Blaine Bartel, one of today’s leading youth specialists,

will take you there with short, scriptural lists that will
give you the edge in helping your teen.
You will discover how you can:
• Provide spiritual direction to your teen

• Help your teen plan a fantastic future
• Help your teen find favor in friendships
• Protect your teen from dating dangers
• Help your teen win respect with authority,
including you
• Develop discipline and work ethic in your teen
• And much more!
Raising teenagers may be the most

difficult job you’ll ever undertake,
but the rewards are absolutely
priceless.
the big black book for parents

by Blaine Bartel
1-57794-722-3
Available at bookstores everywhere

or visit www.harrisonhouse.com.
Take the Turn for God in Just
5 Minutes a Day>>
Witty, short, and inspiring devotions for teens from

one of America’s youth leadership specialists!
Teens can discover a real, action-packed, enthusiastic

relationship with God. The thrive.teen.devotional is
motivated by a very simple challenge: Give just five
minutes a day to God and watch your life turn around.
At the end of eight weeks, the Word of God is going

to be more real and alive to teens than ever before as
they gain spiritual insights on issues like friendships,
self-esteem, and prayer. The good news is that when
one’s mind is renewed, they experience a radical turn-
around in every other area of their life, too.
thrive.teen.devotional
by Blaine Bartel
1-57794-777-0
Available at bookstores everywhere

or visit www.harrisonhouse.com.
Other Books by Blaine Bartel>>
every teenager’s
little black book
on reaching your dreams
every teenager’s
little black book
of God’s guarantees
every teenager’s
little black book
on how to get along with your parents
every teenager’s
little black book
for athletes
every teenager’s
little black book
on how to win a friend to Christ
every teenager’s
little black book
on sex and dating
every teenager’s
little black book
on cash
every teenager’s
little black book
on cool
every teenager’s
little black book
of hard to find information
every teenager’s
little black book
for graduates
for more information on the little black book series,
please visit our web site at:
www.littleblackbooks.info
www.harrisonhouse.com
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{Let Me Tell You

What Your Teens Are Telling Me}

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from The Amplified

Scripture quotations marked MESSAGE are taken from The Message.

Let Me Tell You What Your Teens Are Telling Me

Published by Harrison House, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under

1 Confessions of a Former Parenting Expert........1

2 “I’m a little brain-damaged,

3 “Quit trying to act perfect because

4 “Lighten up! I’m not Billy Graham

5 “‘Because I said so,’ isn’t good enough.” ........73

6 “Give me direction because I’ve

7 “Quit saying no and give me

8 “Don’t let my friends be the first

9 “My parents don’t trust me.” ..........................167

10 “Be my friend—but don’t tell anybody.” ......185

The thing that impresses

A couple of years ago a well-respected traveling

The answer came right out before I realized what I

If you are parenting teenagers right now or are a

Do you know what your teenager is thinking? Do you

If you are not a parent of a teenager, you will still

that in these troubled times, there are a lot of trou-

Some of these troubled young people are rebelling

The important thing As Cathy and I have grown up

that whatever the problem is, it usually goes right back

If you are parenting a teenager, I know this book will

Teenagers today are the leaders of tomorrow. And for

{ Blessed is every one who fears the LORD,

H aving children makes

W hen I started in ministry, I was a

I learn something new every day about raising

Most important, I cannot read enough of God’s

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God,

In this process of raising our teenagers, we find out

Parenting requires a nonstop, deep-in-the-trenches

means repeating answers to their questions—often.

Cathy and I have discovered that all teenagers are not

Our oldest is Jeremy. He is

dresser, and there are hundreds of them! They are

Again, there are principles from God’s Word that work

Reality parenting is an adventure! Like anything else in

One of the things God has shown me is that we forget

We forget what it was like to be a teenager. But did

there. There were all kinds of cultures and religions in

…religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists,

Paul tells the Corinthians that he will serve people in

This is a great principle for dealing with teenagers! We

can be effective in giving them instruction, disciplining

As a green, wet-behind-the-ears youth pastor, I had no

You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the

One of the main things I have

Read this passage again in the context of reaching your

Keep Yourself in Shape

To win, we have to be like an athlete training for the

Get God’s Strategy

To win, we also have to strategize. Just like an athlete

run. They consider who they are running against, the

As Christians, we have the advantage of knowing God,

Does this sound like a lot of work to you? Sometimes

A Tribe of Their Own

One of the main things I have learned through the